Far Cry: End Times
by spnopineapples
Summary: Far Cry 5. Characters from the game are all present with the addition of my Deputy, Rebecca Shaw. Leading up to the events of the game the Seeds had been in Hope County for 15 years. Shaw's character left 7 years before the events hence the Seed's not really knowing her. Story is from multiple perspectives. Tells the lead up to the game and events during.
1. Chapter 1: The Beginning of the End

Junior Deputy Shaw was consumed by an overwhelming sense of unease. This feeling had wormed its way into the back of her mind about a month into her probation period on the force. Sheriff Whitehorse had been clear upon her arrival in February that he needed more experienced personnel and "Those God-damned Missoula bureaucratic turd buckets aren't taking the Project near serious enough. Oregon's got nothing on this, one measly Ranger building and the feds' are up in arms, meanwhile Eden's Gate has the whole County bought and paid for and not a goddamn'd peep!" She remembered that conversation, sitting in one of the Sheriff's leather arm chairs, newly pressed uniform on sans duty belt with Deputy Hudson standing in one corner with a grim smile betraying that same underlying tension. Sheriff had been waving his brimmed hat about with each word, his paunch vibrating with his deep voice as he glared at Shaw over his aviators. She could hear Nancy, the 52 year old dispatcher with premature gray hair and soft skin, typing away on her keyboard just outside the office door.

Deputy Shaw knew each of these people. She'd been born and raised in Hope County, Montana. Sheriff Whitehorse had been drinking buddies with her father, old man Will Boyd, and Mr. Fairgrave; chugging back Natty's at the Spread Eagle and arguing who sang it better Dolly Parton or Kelly Clarkson. Same old argument they'd been having since 2001. "That Jolene with her long blonde hair and eyes of emerald green!" Shaw had often walked in to collect her father as the drunken group sang the line off key and out of time with each other, Sheriff slamming a hand down on her father's shoulder and demanding his keys before passing them off to his unlicensed daughter. Sheriff had been a heavy drinker back then. Since her return Shaw had noted he didn't drink anymore. Instead he smoked. Not the best trade off but he could have gone the way of her father and driven his truck off the side of the mountain after an evening swimming in the bottom of a bottle of Jack Daniels's #7. The death of her father had precipitated Shaw's return to Hope County some 3 years back. She'd been gone 4 years before that, the day of her mother's funeral, taking all her belongings and her truck and driving 2 days straight to El Paso, TX, swearing to never return. But her father's death had demanded a visitation at the time.

*** 3 years ago ***

It had been strange, coming back. She'd put in emergency absence from school and work for 2 weeks, flew in to Missoula, picked up her rental (a forest green SUV because no way in hell was she going to drive into Hope County in a sedan anything, she knew the area too well to fall into that trap, gas mileage be damned), and drove 3 hours into the mountains. Home had never been more foreign and yet more familiar to her. Not much had changed in four years, but staying one evening in Fall's End was enough to show her that everything had, just not on the outside. What she meant of course was the landscape hadn't changed. The same old buildings, the same roads, the same signs, the same skyline and trees, all the old farms and home steads, the fishbowl aspect of the valley and the towering mountains that loomed overhead. It was the feeling, the people that had changed. Shops that had been family run for decades were now boarded up. Houses that had been in bloodlines for 3 generations or more were vacant with signs out front stating the properties had been sold in auction or in private sale. No one sat outside on their porches, smoking and talking languidly with their neighbors. Blinds were shut and lights were out. The Spread Eagle, which should have been blasting music and spilling sound out onto the street, was all but vacant with only two locals nursing beers and Mary May talking in hushed tones with her father behind the bar, one lonely song keening from the jukebox; an old forgotten ballad by Heart, Dog and Butterfly.

She remembered parking out front of the bar, which would have been impossible not even four years before that, and getting out, stretching long and hard in the freezing cold air, back cracking and shoulders popping. The crush of the snow beneath her boots had reverberated in the empty street and she'd taken a brief moment to look across the road at McNann's store, which was already shuttered and locked up at 6 in the evening. There was a letter tacked to the sign board at the entrance. Even from here she could see the letterhead, a two-lined cross, dark circle at the intersection, with 4 pointed rays protruding outward. The Project at Eden's Gate. That was their symbol. She knew them too.

The Seeds'd been around some 8 years before she left out of town. She remembered the Seed family vividly. 12 years old and sitting in the pews of Pastor Jerome's church, sneaking a peek around her mother's shoulder at the stranger from Georgia. Joseph Seed. With the tattoos and the somber dark blue eyes, sunken in under his brow, swimming in shadows. Fast forward five years, now 17; decidedly tired of attending church altogether, tired of her momma's futile prayers for father, and tired of her blind faith that God would heal the malevolent cancer in her 'with time and prayer'; when Joseph Seed took to the podium and admonished the Pastor in front of the congregation. She remembered his words and his presence. The undertow of emotion in the crowd, volatile and agitated. The division he caused with his softly spoken words, a climate of dissent he had been sowing over the past two years. Crazy she'd thought at the time. But crazy seemed to fit quite a few people in the crowd that day. Her momma included.

His two brothers and a few of his followers had been there that day. She'd been shocked to see Will Boyd, her daddy's friend, sitting with them. Even more surprisingly he looked sober. She hadn't seen him for some time, not since the funeral for his wife and little girl earlier that year. Shaw had watched the Pastor falter as lines of people followed Joseph and his brothers down the aisle and out the front doors after his intoxicating speech. The Pastor's hazel eyes filled with uncertainty and not a bit of anger. As Joseph passed by them she had held tight to her mother's arm, whispering vehemently in her ear that a cult couldn't save her. She glared at those Seed boys, cursing the fire they had put in her mother. It wasn't prophecies about a Collapse and salvation her mother needed. It was money and a good doctor. Which they didn't have, just an old house, unanswered prayers, and piles of empty beer and liquor bottles.

The Seeds had seen her hostile glare and her mother's outstretched hand. Joseph paused and reached out to gently grip the frail, skinbone appendage. Nothing was said, just a soft squeeze and then he let her go. He spared Shaw's defiant teenage glower a quick glance, only for a second before continuing on. John and Jacob followed close after, both paying more attention to the young girl. Jacob stared at her as he passed, head cocked to the side, old burn scars exposed in the Sunday morning light and pale blue eyes calculating under a brooding brow. John had his lawyer smile plastered on, freshly shaved face exhibiting an expression of concern and care, and his gaze shifted from her frail mother's enraptured face to Shaw's own baleful look. His smile could not quite reach his eyes and whereas Joseph's gaze had been regretful and Jacob's calculating, John's was cold and hungry, giving the lie to his false concern. 17 year old Shaw had had the common sense to break eye contact first, looking away to turn her attention to her mother who'd begun coughing raggedly into her sleeve.

Eden's Gate had continued to grow those next two years while her mother shrunk in on herself. She stopped attending church and began going up the mountain to hear Joseph's sermons. She'd begged Shaw to come with her, but she'd refused and often times found herself yelling at her mother's idiocy, her naiveté. Joseph tried to visit their homestead once and for the first time in 18 years, Shaw had been glad for her pa's drunken rage. The sound of the porch shotgun going off and her mother's weak pleas for him to stop. 'Give him a chance to speak.' Shaw would normally have intervened, standing toe to toe with her father, pushing him and yelling back, hitting if need be, but that time… No, that time she let the drunk off his leash. She even let him shove mama out of his way, but was there to catch her quick. She had watched, almost gleefully, as her red-faced and already piss drunk father shoved the barrel in Joseph's face and ordered him off their property. Joseph had raised his hands up in placation, backing up slowly until he was beyond their barbed-wire property fence. He'd then, infuriatingly, bid farewell to momma before getting into the passenger seat of one of his compound's white trucks and he and his driver drove away.

The next day John had showed up with a sheaf of papers and Sheriff Whitehorse and one of his Deputies, both looking extremely uncomfortable. John approached the gate that Shaw had stood resolutely behind, shotgun in the crook of her arm. She was there to greet them, having seen them come up the road. She was alone. Pa was pass out drunk in the kitchen and momma had already headed up the mountain for one of Joseph's services. John stopped just before the gate and made to pass to her over their fence the restraining order and court summons. He had smiled as she reached out to take the documents, two of his fingers surreptitiously brushing the back of her hand. Shaw had snapped back her hand with the documents quickly, frowning. John just grinned, flashing white teeth and ignoring the Sheriff's glare beside him.

"You should come join us, Rebecca." Shaw realized suddenly that this was the first time she had ever heard the youngest Seed brother speak. Unlike Joseph's voice his was less sorcerous and more congenial. Whereas Joseph's voice had often drawn Shaw to listen in awed mysticism, John's voice felt as if it were inviting her to speak. It felt like a trap to her.

"Monica speaks often of you. Such a good girl, she tells us. Misunderstood." He'd placed a hand on one of the fence posts and leaned in. Shaw had been a little surprised to see that instead of his hands being well-manicured and soft, they were, in actuality, calloused and weathered with white lines of old scars, covered over in tattoos. The ones on his knuckles looked fresh, EDENS GATE they spelled out, and she could tell they reached up his arms given the ones that disappeared under the cuffs of his shirt sleeves and long jacket. John's silky voice intruded her musings as he finished,

" 'She just needs some guidance'… Eden's Gate can give you that. Joseph can give you that. We can cleanse you of any doubt. Make you whole." Shaw had grimaced then and spat to the side of the gate.

"No offense, Mr. Seed, but I'll go up that goddamned mountain when chickens have teeth." John's eyebrows cocked up and before he could ask, Shaw clarified,

"That means never. Eden's Gate can go spit." Sheriff Whitehorse and his Deputy's lips twitched in suppressed mirth and that would have made young Shaw proud if not for John's widening grin. His voice was matter of fact.

"That restraining order is only for your father, Ms. Shaw. Not for you. It's too late to save him, but you…" He'd leaned in even further, dark silk shirt making soft noises as he moved, the sunglasses on his head glinting in the pale morning light, steel blue eyes gazing down expectantly. Shaw took a step back, gripping her shotgun tighter, unsure and feeling skewered in place by John's gaze as he stated clearly just for her,

"Your soul is still worth saving." Shaw watched them leave warily and did not move from her spot until the vehicle was long gone. As she trudged back up to the house with the intent of throwing a bucket of water on her father for a late morning bath, she wondered why John's words had been less comforting and more menacing.

Her mother died a year later. She blamed her father. Bastard had drank their money away and they couldn't afford any of the treatments that her mother really needed. The funeral happened on a Thursday morning. Shaw had heard her mother's last request and though she'd promised her she'd carry out her wishes, Shaw had kept silent, only producing to the lawyers the will her momma had writ up upon first finding out about her illness, before she'd ever started following Joseph Seed and Eden's Gate. Instead of remanding her body to be buried up the mountain they'd cremated her and placed her ashes in the church cemetery with the rest of the Shaws.

Joseph and John and a few of Joseph's followers attended the funeral service at the church in Fall's End. Pastor Jerome had cautioned Shaw not to bar them from the ceremony. 'More trouble than it's worth, Becky, and your momma would have wanted them here anyways.' Some choice words were exchanged between them, but in the end Shaw yielded. The tension in the church that day was on par with when she was 17 and Joseph stole half of the congregation out from under the Pastor's nose. Townsfolk who weren't a part of Eden's Gate sat on the opposite side of the aisle, often glancing over at Joseph and his small group of followers and whispering. Shaw's father did not come to the service. Shaw ignored the Seeds and when Joseph and John made to come talk to her after the Pastor's closing words, she'd walked away, down the aisle, out the church and to her truck.

She'd already packed everything in the bed. Mary May had come running up and tapped on her window before she started up the engine. Shaw rolled it down and looked up at her,

"Where are you gonna go?", she asked. Despite their age difference, Mary May and her had formed a strange friendship over the years and the many times they'd hung out at the Spread Eagle; Mary May helping her father work the bar while simultaneously babysitting her kid brother, Drew, and Shaw waiting til her father began to stumble about, forcing Mr. Fairgrave to cut him off and initiating Shaw's attempts to get him home.

"Anywhere not here. Mexico?" Mary May's grin was real and beautiful in response,

"Good tequila down there." Shaw had laughed brokenly then, trying to cover the sob that was attempting to escape. She couldn't conceal her watery eyes or the whites of her knuckles gripping the steering column of her rusty, beat up Ford. Mary May reached in and gripped her shoulder through the window.

"Hey now. You'll be alright, Becky. You don't break." Just then the Seeds came out of the church. Joseph led the small group, his followers with eyes riveted on him as he spoke a few words, one hand gripping the shoulder a young woman in familiarity. John also talked with a few in the rear of the group, expressing the appropriate amount of solemnity. Mary May and Shaw watched them enter their trucks, Mary May with a disturbed frown and Shaw with a look of pure hatred. She growled,

"Fuckin Peggies." John noticed them and as he entered the passenger seat of his vehicle he caught the girls' eyes and made a little salute, his lips twitching perceptibly. Mary May took the opportunity to flip him off, her other hand on top of Shaw's which was gripping the steering wheel even tighter. They watched them drive off and Mary May sighed,

"They're bad news. I think they've been here so long that folk are starting to let them in, normalizing them. They're like one of them rattler's out at Rae Rae's. Snake in the Garden, Dad calls em. Says they'll bite us soon enough while we're not looking." Shaw watched them all the way down the main road til they turned off and out of her line of sight. She grimaced,

"Well, good enough of a metaphor. They're a poison, Mary. They were poison to momma. Joseph's crazy and those brothers of his are fucking creepy." Mary May sighed again,

"Yeah. Creeptastic. Hey girl. Stay safe." Mary May reached all the way in and hugged her round her shoulders, Shaw returned the awkward squeeze. Mary May let go and leaned back out, patting the side of the truck before asking,

"Want me to say anything to your pa?" Shaw turned on the ignition and let the truck rumble to life. More people were coming out of the Church. She wiped at her eyes furtively and put on a pair of tinted aviators. Putting the truck in gear she smiled up at her friend,

"Tell him to rot in hell." With that, Rebecca Shaw left Hope County.

Four years later she stretched out cramped muscles and stared at a letterhead, wondering what the Peggies were up to, if they'd had their followers drink any Kool-Aid recently to precipitate the Collapse.

She found out more than she wanted to know over the next few hours. When Shaw walked into the bar out of the cold and the pink and purple neon glow of the lude sign over the entrance, Mary May and her father were quick to have her sit and fill her in, especially after they began drinking out of Shaw's gift bottle of Patrón. Shaw fiddled absentmindedly with the glass bee on the front of the bottle as they let her know just how much Eden's Gate had grown, how much property they'd started buying up, which families had moved out, joined up, or just plain disappeared. Their voices had gotten quieter as they talked about Eden's Gates visits to the town, how they'd been harassed about selling alcohol, shipments that were starting to go missing. 9 rolled around and Mr. Fairgrave started to close up. Mary May continued to tell Shaw about the goings on and with her father busy she confessed her concerns about her mother's health, how the financial stress was weakening her heart. Worse she spoke of her brother Drew.

"He failed out of Basic you know. Came home and we thought he was fine and then he started hanging around the Peggie compound. One day we find out that John had baptized him. He's been going up that damned mountain, Becky. Now he's fucking living up there. Won't return any of our calls. Won't visit mom. Sheriff says he can't do nothing, he's not being held against his will when he went to check. I'm pretty sure the Seeds have the town's officers in their pockets because they won't do nothin either." Her voice had gotten more frantic by the end and when she went to pour them both their 3rd shot of the night, her hand trembled and some of the tequila sloshed out onto the bar. Shaw frowned. She didn't know what to tell her. She hadn't been able to stop her momma from going up there either, no advice she could give Mary May would help her. So she said what she could,

"I'm sorry Mary. I wished they'd just leave, go back to Georgia, take their craziness with em." Mary May smiled sadly and held up her shot glass. Shaw clinked hers against Mary May's, who swung it back in one gulp. She took Shaw's now empty glass and placed both in the sink behind the counter before stoppering up the Patrón and sighing,

"Yeah, wish that'd happen too, but I think the Seeds have dug in for the long haul." She spared a look to her father who was helping the lonely two drinkers out the door. Her jaw straightened and she pressed on, changing the subject abruptly,

"When's the funeral?" Shaw shrugged,

"Have to see the lawyer first. Was supposed to see her tonight, but it can wait. Should I know something? Did the old drunk sell off the 'stead for a 6 pack?" Mr. Fairgrave returned then, clicking his tongue in admonishment,

"He might have been a right bastard, Becky, but respect the dead." Shaw stiffened noticeably, her fists curling up on the bar, and responded in a tight voice,

"Respectfully, why should I give a damn? He disrespected momma when he didn't even show up to her funeral. I had half a mind not to show up for his!" Mary May held up her hands and made a soothing motion,

"You're tired Becky. Stay in the apartment upstairs tonight. You're going to need your sleep. John's been eyeing the Shaw property these past few years, been wanting it something fierce. Your daddy was putting up a right royal fuss over it. You might have to contend with the Seeds before you leave." Shaw's eye twitched noticeably and she felt a rumble reach up her throat turning into a growl that just as quickly turned into a sardonic chuckle. She uncorked the Patrón and reached over the counter to grab the shot glass in the sink.

"Great."


	2. Chapter 2: Settling Accounts

Shaw woke up groggily with a hangover. She didn't remember anything after the 6th shot last night. She lay on the springy mattress with no sheets, blood shot eyes opened in half-slits showing off the redness of the drink, her mouth working to try and gather up some spit. She attempted to push herself out of bed but ended up falling off the side instead.

"Jesus Christ Almighty." She laid sprawled on her back, still dressed in yesterday's clothes, both hands pressed hard to the sides of her temples. She wanted to throw up. At least her boots were off. That's when her phone rang and her morning immediately got worse. Fanny Lawson wanted to meet up in an hour,

"Honey, I'm concerned about your father's estate – " Shaw cut her off with a groan,

"What, he still has one? Didn't drink it?" She could feel that blond bimbo's disapproval through the phone. _Just come see me in an hour_.

An hour later Shaw was nursing a cup of coffee and wearing fresh clothes, a heavy aviator's jacket, a baseball cap and very dark shades. She stood in front of Lawson's one story office suite which doubled as her house, fluffing up the collar of her jacket against the morning's freezing air, waiting for someone to answer the door. She was not expecting John Seed to be that someone. The man stared at her for a few seconds and then recognition dawned on his face with the quirk of upturned lips,

"Rebecca." He sounded out her name like he was savoring every syllable. She almost flung the hot coffee in the man's face. He hadn't changed too much over the four years she'd been gone. He had more tattoos on his knuckles now and on the back of his left hand that hung loosely down at his side as he leaned up against the door post with his right, she noticed a list of words. Latin. He was also growing a beard, so even if she threw her coffee in his face it wouldn't burn as much skin as she would like, but maybe if she got it in his eyes… His gaze was as unnerving as ever, making her feel stripped. She felt the urge to throw up. She thought about throwing up all over his Gucci get up. Long sleeved, black shirt, collar unbuttoned and a lettered tattoo peeking out. The fitted, charcoal grey suit and pants, and jacket vest with obsidian buttons he wore had to be Armani. Fucking lawyers. She just barely held her vomit down.

"Mr. Seed." His lips spread as he took a step back, making room for her to enter, gesturing down the hall with an outstretched hand,

"So formal. Please, call me John." Shaw looked past him, seeing Fanny further down, at the door of her office, with a stack of papers and a sour expression. Shaw made a face and walked past John.

"No thanks. Fanny, why the hell is he here?" As she passed the youngest Seed brother she swore that his fingers brushed her nearest arm lightly. He was close enough she could smell him, some Ralph Lauren shit, expensive smelling, that and whatever hair paste he used, Old Spice maybe. She felt her stomach turn again and she shot him a warning glance, but he maintained an innocent expression as he shut the door behind her. Fanny answered aggressively,

"Well if you'd stopped by last night like we agreed – " Shaw moved further in, waving her hand dismissively,

"I was at the Spread Eagle." John's voice filled the room like a snake coiling up in its den,

"I hope the Fairgrave's are doing well. If you stop by again let them know that Drew sends his well wishes and hopes his mother is feeling better." Shaw rounded on the man. He was only taller than her by an inch or so. Shaw was not short, most men were the same height and she was solid enough to give pause for anyone wanting to start something. She'd quailed many a rowdy drunkard with her stance and the look of pure, raw anger she could convey, unblinkingly with nostrils flared. John just smiled wider, his hands on his hips as he looked down at her.

"What do you want, Seed?" John's shrug was perfunctory and his response unhurried,

"It's not about what I want, Ms. Shaw. Eden's Gate would like to make an offer for your land." They stood there facing off, Shaw's one free hand curling into a fist by her side, Fanny gripping her documents, completely forgotten in the background. Slowly though Shaw's hand relaxed and she stepped back, taking a sip of lukewarm coffee before responding. She turned to Fanny and pointed at the papers.

"Is that his proposal?" Fanny nodded, her eyes darting to John and then back to Shaw,

"What's he offering?" Fanny's demeanor changed slightly, becoming more confident upon entering discussion territory she was familiar with.

"I'd take the offer dear. Eden's Gate is willing to cover all leanings on the land and are providing a week grace period to remove whatever property you wish to remand." Shaw's focus had completely shifted to Fanny who had placed the documents on the table, pointing out highlighted areas for her attention. Shaw read through everything, asking questions here and there on wording and meaning. Her head was fuzzy and aching from the hangover, even more so from the legal jargonese, but she was getting the gist.

She'd get nothing for the land, but she'd not have to pay any debts for the property. It wasn't the best deal. The property covered over 50 acres of both woodland, 2 viable streams, and fields. If she didn't sign she could probably find a better offer that could cover both the repair expenses, debt pay off and leave her a little extra on the side, at least 500 dollars.

Conversation from last night filtered through the fog in her brain though, stopping her desire to tell John to take his proposal and shove it up his ass. Mary May telling her about similar cases such as hers, where families had refused to sell to Eden's Gate, wanting to hold out for a better offer. How no one seemed willing to buy, how some prospective buyers hung up their phones immediately once they found out who was selling. How more debt began to pile up until they had no choice but to sell to Eden's Gate. John would be waiting like the proverbial devil with a deal, a new proposal in hand that requested purchase cost at dollars less than the original offer. But what other choice was there.

Shaw had been silent for a while now, reviewing the printed pages. Her coffee sat cold and forgotten on the side of the desk. John and Fanny hadn't said a word. Shaw took off her sun glasses and rubbed her eyes. She looked up to find John watching her, his lips quirked up at the corners, his eyes downright twinkling in amusement. He was leaned up against one of Fanny's file cabinets, his fingers fiddling with the steel cufflink on his left wrist. She fought the compulsion to slam his head back and punch the smirk right off his face. She asked instead,

"Would you say, Mr. Seed, that if I weren't to sign this now, that I would have a difficult time trying to find buyers for my property?" John's smirk turned into an outright grin,

"I would say as of right now, it's a buyer's market, but even in this market, you'd have a hard time selling to anyone in the area. Though that, of course, has no correlation to these proceedings." He stopped fiddling with the cufflink and pushed himself off the cabinet, ignoring Fanny's slight start. John came to the table and stopped a hands breadth away from her, his downward gaze meeting her own, amused and patronizing.

"Why so uncertain, Ms. Shaw? It's a good offer. I can understand your father's hesitancy. It was his home after all." He leaned over the table, brushing against her in the process as he reached out to pluck a picture of the homestead out of the packet. Shaw stepped back immediately when he touched her, her eyes focusing fiercely and her lips tightening in anger. John straightened, showing her the picture of the house she grew up in. His face was a mask of familiarity, understanding, as if he knew what was on her mind,

"You haven't called this home in over - how long has it been? 4 years? So what are you trying to hold on to?" Shaw had had enough. What was she trying to hold onto, he asked? Nothing was her answer. Her voice was clipped when she spoke,

"Fanny. Give me a pen." John raised one dark eyebrow. Fanny handed her a pen and she scratched a signature on each indicated line. After the last one, Shaw gathered up the papers, stacked them straight, and shoved them in the packet with the property pictures before slamming it into John's chest. His tattooed hands reached up to catch the falling packet, a frown on his face.

"I'm holding on to nothing, Seed. Now I have an appointment with Ms. Lawson. Don't let the door hit you on the way out." John scrutinized her for a moment but then plastered on his lawyer grin.

"Ms. Shaw, thank you for your consideration." He turned to leave and called back as he walked away,

"Our condolences for the loss of your father. We pray for you." He got to the door, grabbing a tailored coat off the hook on the wall, and glanced back, a small smile playing across his face, as if he knew a secret she didn't,

"It was a pleasure seeing you again, Rebecca." Again he lingered on her name. As if tasting it.

"As your mother wished, I have prayed for your soul every day. That you might see reason and accept the Cleansing. She so wished for your sin to be absolved." Shaw's features twisted and she felt a heat rise up in her. Her fists were clinched again.

"Go spit." John's only response was to grin and dip his head in farewell before leaving out the door. She and Fanny stood there for a minute, listening to John Seed get into his truck and drive away. Fanny's sigh of relief broke the silence and she confessed to Shaw,

"That man scares me."

The next week passed in a start and stop kind of motion. One moment she'd be rushing around in her rental, doing some small task or other, next she'd be sitting on the tailgate of her truck with nothing else to occupy her time, sipping a beer while watching the Tenson family's cows huddle in a field trying to stay warm as a light snow fell from a grey sky. The townsfolk as all knew her, a handful of households since the Shaw family had been notorious introverts up in there house on the hill, were helpful to the extreme. She stayed in the apartment over the Spread Eagle bar, refusing to go up to the old home, and drank every night. Not as much as she wanted to though, the Fairgrave's were rationing their alcohol. Shaw knew she was holding off on going up to the property, the funeral was in two days and she'd be leaving the day after that and she knew already that she wasn't going to be staying that extra day. Her whole being wanted out of the county. All those helpful folk kept talking about the past, about when she was younger, her mother, their family. Most reminisced to her longingly about a time before the Peggies. Shaw would have to cut these conversations short because she could feel the heat beginning to rise in her. 'Your red monster,' that's what her momma had always called it. Those folk talking longingly of a better time seemed to had forgotten what those 'good times' were really like. At least for Shaw anyways.

The only person she could really talk to, besides Mary May, who excelled at distracting her with questions about El Paso and Shaw's big plans, was Pastor Jerome. Just like when she was younger, he was able to steer her to calmer waters, effectively silencing that red beast inside her. Recently he would let her sit quietly in the pews of his poorly-heated church, saying nothing, just sitting and watching the dust motes swim in the afternoon light that filtered weakly through the large, arched windows. Often times he'd find her nursing a glass of whiskey at the Spread Eagle and he'd go and sit at the busted up and slightly off key piano, click off the jukebox and start dancing his fingers across the keys. Whenever Jerome played, the piano never sounded off. When Shaw had been real young and still … sweet, as her momma used to say, she'd sing on Sunday's for the congregation. Momma always said it was their Scottish ancestors coming out in her and using her voice to praise the Lord.

Shaw had just planned out the funeral that morning with the Pastor and had even finalized all the legal paperwork with Fanny. She'd wrapped it up all nice about two hours ago, when the sun was still up and while in full knowledge that the next day was the last day to go up to the homestead and go through the property before the Seeds and Eden's Gate took full ownership. She had enough time left in the day to drive up and start looking through. Instead she found herself at the Spread Eagle, sitting at her table, glaring at her father's old perch as she brooded over a glass of bourbon. She slammed back the last of the brown liquid and went to raise it up as an indicator for Mr. Fairgrave to come over and fill up her third helping of the last two hours. As she raised the glass, Jerome appeared and placed his hand over top of the rim, forcing the glass down with a sharp clink as it hit the table top. Shaw's head snapped upward and she stared up at Jerome defiantly,

"Your sermons didn't work on daddy, Father, they sure as hell won't work on me." Jerome stared at her glumly, he never did really smile. It was a rare thing for him. Momma use to say that he'd been a lovely boy before the war. The most beautiful smile. Jerome stood there, one dark hand resting still on the top of her empty glass,

"Your mother always called me Father. It's a shame she didn't have a Catholic priest to guide her in the last years of her life, but I think she found someone else to shepherd her." Damn, usually Jerome was good at cooling her anger. Shaw stood up abruptly, causing her chair to scrape across the floor. Her face broke out into a feral grin, the alcohol already slinking through her veins and burning her insides, setting a fire in her chest that begged to be released.

"I'm not afraid of your Lord, Pastor Jerome. Don't think I won't hit you." Jerome was the same height as her and though he was slighter in build, he stood his ground and held up one palm in a placatory manner.

"My apologies, Becky. I didn't mean it in that way. I meant that I wish I had had the strength and fortitude to help her in the end. I let her go when I should have fought for her." This declaration of guilt was so closely tied to Shaw's own that the heated anger was suctioned right out of her, leaving behind a cold shame. Momma always said that she and Jerome were much the same. Jerome's voice was quiet as he continued, his gaze understanding.

"You're not here for your father, Shaw, but you are here to bury something." Shaw stiffened. It was like he was in her head. She always felt that way around him. It was comforting sometimes, but other times it caused her deep guilt and shame. Jerome's hand on her shoulder forced her to look up.

"Go home tomorrow, bury what you need to there and then we'll bury what we need to here. Come on." He led her to the piano, shut off the jukebox as he passed by, and, taking a seat, patted the place on the bench next to him. Shaw sat, not so reluctantly. Jerome nudged her shoulder with his own and gave her a rare, sad smile.

"Let's get the grief out of you, Becky." Shaw nodded mutely and Jerome began to play. There were townsfolk in the bar tonight. 3 fishermen from the Henbane that she knew by sight if not by name, both the Jones brothers, and the Fairgraves, of course. They'd all been tactfully not listening in on their discussion, carrying on their own side conversations in hushed tones. Now, as Jerome began to play, they lifted their heads and turned to watch. Jerome's foot tap indicated Shaw's entrance, just like it always had when she'd been younger.

 _Hear that lonesome whippoorwill? He sounds too blue to fly. The midnight train is whining low. I'm so lonesome I could cry._

Shaw's voice was something. All those folk talking about the good times had mentioned it more than once. _Such a shame you stopped singing at the services, Becky._ Some even made the bold claim that had she stayed singing the Peggies wouldn't have taken half so much of the congregation.

 _I've never seen a night so long. When times goes crawling by. The moon just went behind a cloud. To hide its face and cry._

The people in the bar were slowly tapping along to the song, their faces with small smiles and sad eyes staring at something beyond the bar's walls. Shaw and Jerome's smooth baritone both took up the next verse, their voices harmonizing perfectly together.

 _Did you ever see a Robin weep. When leaves begin to die? That means he's lost his will to live. I'm so lonesome I could cry._

Shaw could have sworn that Mrs. Fairgrave was wiping away tears as her husband held her in his arms behind the bar, swaying to the tune. Mary May stood behind the counter, her chin in her hand, studying the singing duo intently. Jerome's presence beside her was warm and comforting and he tapped his foot along again, indicating for her to wrap up the final verse. Shaw closed her eyes as she sang it, putting more emotion into the words than she originally intended to, trying to keep her voice strong and steady despite her tight throat and working hard to keep the tears back. Pastor Jerome was right as always. Music was the best way to get the grief out of her. The darkness behind her eyelids, the sound of the piano and Jerome's weight to her side comforted her enough to close out the song. Her voice filled the room like fog through the woods in the early morning, caught in the light of the rising sun.

 _The Silence of a falling star. Lights up a purple sky. And as I wonder where you are. I'm so lonesome I could cry._

The piano repeated the last cord and Shaw had a hard time finishing, her eyes tight shut, one tear escaping as her voice broke.

 _I'm so lonesome I could cry._

Her voice echoed for a few seconds around the space in the piano before trailing off. Shaw turned to smile at Jerome but a smooth voice broke through the spell of the song and shattered the atmosphere.

"How beautiful." Every head in that bar snapped around to the front entrance where John Seed stood in a long coat, black jeans, heavy boots and polo sweater. As always, dressed to the nines and completely out of place in a backwater pub. He was smiling gregariously, unconcerned with the obvious shift in tone, which had been warm and calm just moments before and was now exuding a jarring unease, every person in the room stiff and wary. Actually, he seemed to be smiling because of it.

A bar never emptied faster. As John Seed stalked forward, hands clasped behind his back, leaving snow prints on the tiled floor, the three fishermen and the Jones brothers made quick exits behind him, taking the farthest route around the youngest Seed brother as they could take without appearing rude. Mr. Fairgrave had also taken his wife's arm, drawing her into the kitchen, supposedly out through the back. He'd return, for sure, but his wife couldn't stay. Mary May did though, one hand behind the counter, out of sight, touching the 12 gauge pump action that they kept there, just in case, the other busy with a rag on top of the bar. Jerome and Shaw moved to stand, the piano bench pushing back across the floor as they did so.

As the men left through the front door, Shaw could make out two running trucks and a van, the cult's symbol spray-painted on the white sides in a deep red. A cluster of cultists formed up in a huddled circle in front of the vehicles, hands in pockets and collars turned up against the fresh powder falling from the sky. More than a few eyed the retreating patrons, the rest murmured amongst themselves, their breath rising up through the air in white puffs.

The door swung shut, closing off the bar from the outside world, leaving the four of them alone together. John's footsteps echoed as he made his way across the room, all eyes following him suspiciously. He came to a stop at the bar, removed his leather gloves, and proceeded to pick up one of the Jones brother's glasses that was still half-filled with amber beer. He swilled it around slowly in the glass as he placed his elbows on the bar, leaning forward till he was face to face with Mary May, only an arm's length between them. He raised the glass to his nose and sniffed, gazing intently over the rim at Mary May, his attention solely focused on her. As he smelled the alcohol he tutted audibly, placing the glass back down on the counter with a loud clink. Mary May stared back defiantly, her expression showing exactly what she thought about the man in front of her.

"I remember asking your father to stop serving alcoholic beverages here. He seems to think our considerations are not to be taken into account." Mary May's voice was obstinate as she reached out to remove the glasses from the bar with one hand,

"I remember him kindly telling you to fuck off." Quick as a snake, John grasped the wrist of the hand she had stretched forward. The reactions were instantaneous. Jerome and Shaw moved out from behind the piano and made their way as if to grab John, and Mary May started to raise her shotgun, but a very audible _shlunk_ of a bolt retracting and then sliding forward on a rifle caused all heads to turn to the kitchen door where Mr. Fairgrave had returned with his .22. His voice was a deep rumble, his eyebrows dropped down in a furious glare,

"Take your hand off my daughter, John Seed." John's only response was to smile wider, showing off a set of white teeth, his hand still clinching Mary May's wrist firmly. He started to give a short laugh that was immediately cut off by the spat of Fairgrave's rifle going off, a bullet whizzing right past John's head and lodging itself across the bar in the opposite wall with a sharp crack. Now a .22 doesn't make a loud noise, not one that could be heard outside over the sound of running engines anyways.

John's demeanor grew severe. It was like a mask falling off him. His smile froze on his lips and his eyes locked on to Fairgrave's, the whole structure of his face turning to steel and his jawline sharpening. Shaw noticed that his grip on Mary May turned into a crushing hold that caused her to wince in pain before he immediately released her and held up his hands in a mocking manner, his body swaying backwards on his feet as he leaned up away from the bar.

"That wasn't very hospitable of you, Richard." Fairgrave's snort was absurdly loud in response as he lowered his rifle and stepped up to his daughter, who was rubbing her sore wrist as she stared warily at John. Shaw and Jerome had made it over and now stood in front of John, in between him and the bar. Seeing all four unfriendly glares, John had to drop the hostility and grace them with an affable grin again, the mask pulling itself back together, his hands still outstretched as if it had all been some joke.

"No harm, no foul. I just wanted to stop by and see how Drew's family was faring. And I'm glad I did." He turned then to look at Shaw, his grin becoming a familial smile as he dropped one arm and gestured to her with the other.

"Rebecca. I never knew you could sing." Shaw smiled superficially. She had one hand on Jerome's elbow in an effort to restrain both him and herself from doing something stupid.

"When the mood strikes. That's a lot of people out there." She pointed her jaw in the direction of the door.

"Plan on starting some trouble?" John did give a short laugh this time and glanced back over his shoulder nonchalantly as he put his gloves back on, one hand, then the other.

"No no." He finished tugging on the right glove as he turned back to the four, his smile a hard line again.

"You'd know if we were about to start trouble." It was irksome to Shaw that John was able to instill a certain level of disquiet in them with that veiled warning. He was a wolf in sheepskin convincing them that he was an innocuous interloper with fine words and assurances, but never quite coming out and threatening them, as if he didn't want to scare them off just yet. He didn't want them scared until he had his fangs in their necks and they had nowhere to run to. John put his hands behind his back again and continued as if no animosity had just transpired between them,

"No, we're headed to Steele's ranch. George and Helen have graciously offered supper to the Cleansing party tonight before we go down to the river." Pastor Jerome's facial expression shifted to one of incredulousness and Shaw really did have to hold him back with a firm crushing of his elbow. Jerome's deep voice broke the air with its skepticism,

"What?" John's head tilted noticeably in a considering manner as his gaze shifted to the pastor.

"Yes, Pastor Jerome. The Steele's have found the words of our Father to be undeniable and they have seen fit to accept the Cleansing in an attempt to absolve their sin before joining us. You see…" He stepped up closer to Jerome, his eyes gleaming in the subdued lights of the bar, voice taking on the vibrato of a sermon,

"The Steele's know they are sinners. They have accepted this. They have said, yes, we wish to be free of this burden. They are willing to be cleansed so that they might confess." He drug out the word 'confess' slowly and methodically as if, like with Shaw's name, he wanted to linger on every syllable. John was again only a hands breath away from someone, he seemed to be focusing all his attention on each of them at least once this evening. As if measuring them, looking inside them, for what… Shaw could only guess. He raised a hand and pointed one finger at Jerome's chest before admonishing him just as the Pastor had been reproved by Joseph seven years ago on a Sunday morning,

"They are willing to open their hearts to the word of God and see that they are unclean. They are willing to confront their sin and atone. Unlike you Pastor Jerome. You still hide behind your cloth and cling to your sin like a drowning man, not knowing that if you'd just let go…" He raised both hands in front of Jerome and made a motion of releasing something into the air. Jerome's nostrils were flared and his hazel eyes were glaring right back at John's own blue ones as they regarded each other unblinking. John finished his speech, bringing his hands back down to clasp them in front of himself,

"If you'd just say 'yes', accept the Father, accept the Cleansing, Atone… You'd be free." Jerome's derisive laugh would have been fine if not for the obvious expression of uncertainty on his face. He did back up next to Shaw and away from John, shrugging off her hand from his elbow before responding,

"Your God is not my God. Joseph is not my father. And my sins are between myself and the Lord and no worldly man." John's smirk made an appearance, a slow smile that crept across his face.

"I know your sin." His eyes roamed across all four of them before coming to rest on Shaw.

"But I can see none of you wish to take part in the Cleansing tonight. It is a bit cold. Surely you will reconsider during a warmer month. One day though for certain." The remark was said in such a confident tone and with such emphasis in maintaining eye contact with Shaw that she had to respond,

"As always. Eden's Gate can go spit. Mr. Fairgrave has the right to refuse service and I do believe he has some exception with you being here if the hole in the wall is any indication." Mr. Fairgrave gave a firm nod, his rifle still held in two hands, barrel not exactly pointed at John, but if he gave a quick pull upward it'd be centered right on him. Just then the front door opened and one of John's party walked in, a female with dark hair and darker eyes. Holly Blunt. Shaw knew her in a twofold manner. First off from her childhood and how Will Boyd use to touch her face at the bar and how Mr. Fairgrave always got upset with this and started bringing up Will's wife and daughter at those times. Secondly as the woman who would come down from the mountain and give her mother a ride up to the Project at Eden's Gate in a white truck with a red cross on it. She loathed her for both parts. When Holly entered she paused a moment, her eyes first roving from the shotgun Mary May had placed in full view on the counter now, to the rifle in the bar owner's hand, to Pastor Jerome who still stood with clinched fists, to Shaw's defiant stance and finally to a rest on John who took a moment to shift his gaze from Shaw to Holly. Holly's eyes betrayed her feelings when they quickly flashed back to Shaw to see how well the young woman had filled out from a gangly 19 year old to the 23 year old woman she was now. Her gaze narrowed briefly before returning back to John who nodded her way,

"Holly?"

"Sir, we're going to be late." John's mask fell off again and this time instead of cold anger, there was a burning, barely controlled fury. His voice was like the whipping crack of ice,

"So I'm on the Steele's time now, Holly?" Holly noticeably flinched, her back stiffening, but continued on in a dogged voice, explaining herself,

"No, sir, but the Father has radioed and stated that he will be there this evening." John's face didn't exactly blanch but it did grow incredibly still for a brief moment before he dawned a new, unconcerned veneer. He turned away from Holly and addressed the four others,

"My apologies, ladies. Gentlemen. It seems I am needed elsewhere – " Shaw interrupted him with her own smirk,

"Joseph calls and there you go running." And there was that stillness again and suddenly Shaw didn't think it was fear that caused the stillness or even grudging obedience. The stillness seemed reserved for a deeper emotion, one more deeply rooted in rage. And her words had incited it again and once again John's scrutiny and words were for her alone.

"Rebecca." He paused holding the gaze between them before abruptly turning on his heel and ushering Holly out of the door ahead of him. As he made to exit, he gave his last parting words, his breath already coming out in a white cloud of smoke as the heated air in the bar mixed with that of the chilled outdoor,

"I look forward to seeing you again."

And with that the door slammed shut and silence spread out like a suffocating blanket. They stood that way for a few long seconds, keeping their eyes on the entrance as they listened to vehicle doors open and shut and then the crunching of gravel as the Peggie convoy drove off. Shaw's voice broke out in a dour tone, her eyes cast in a tired glance around the bar,

"I can't wait to get out of here." Jerome's worried frown was directed to the Fairgraves when he responded,

"Some of us are stuck here, Becky. The Seed's aren't going to stop." Mary May was receiving an ice pack from her father to put on her bruising wrist and she responded darkly,

"Not til we're all Peggies with them, no they won't."


	3. Chapter 3: Temptation

John watched from the shore as the Steele's waded through the shallows towards a solitary figure who stood waist-deep in the dark waters ahead of them, haloed in the reflected light of the moon. It had risen while they'd taken supper and though the cloud coverage that evening had proven to be heavy, the clouds had chosen this moment to shred apart, revealing the pale lonesome rock in the sky. John wondered if Joseph would take this as yet another affirmation of divine attention. He certainly looked mystic enough out there amongst the moon reflecting ripples.

Joseph had been standing outside on the Steele's front porch when John arrived and, as was their custom, the two brothers embraced, Joseph reaching up with his hands to cup the sides of John's head, leaning forward to touch his forehead to John's.

"John, welcome, we've been waiting." John had not commented, just nodded and entered the large house, the eight others dressed in the garb of Eden's Gate following close behind. They had eaten, Joseph at the head of the mismatched tables, John seated to his left and George Steele to his right. John had watched impassively as the Steele's interacted, or more accurately how George clung to every word Joseph let pass his lips and how he gushed out his ill-timed responses. John got bored with the fawning quickly and let his attention wander to the wife, Helen. After serving the table she had gone to the chair by her husband and, looking tentatively around the room, she had slowly taken a seat, much like how an antelope would warily survey the surrounding shore of a stream in some African savanna, searching for predators before exposing itself out in the open. John had smiled as she took her first timid bite of string beans, much like a crocodile would grin before bursting through the surface of that same muddy stream to snap its jaws round the neck of the unsuspecting antelope, roughly dragging the struggling creature into the obscured waters. _Oh no_ , John thought as he speared a steamed potato with a plastic fork, his light eyes lingering on the reserved Helen, _someone didn't seem so willing_.

John now stood on a shadowed rock outcropping beneath a canopy of firs, overlooking the shivering Steele's who had changed into white smocks with red-painted crosses on the chest. Helen's face looked even paler in the moonlight, but John saw her eyes flick to the raptured look on her husband as he moved through the waters eagerly and John witnessed as her features transitioned into the downcast expression of doomed acceptance. A woman with no fight in her. _Sloth_ , John thought to himself, disappointed as his eyes gazed upward to the moon, his interest in Helen completely vanished now with the new insight that her confession would be swift. The moon still shown down brightly, no clouds to mar its face and as John sighed, the white wisps of his breath encircled the orb. He began to reminisce on a silvery, lamenting voice,

 _I've never seen a night so long. When time goes crawling by. The moon just went behind a cloud. To hide its face and cry._

Suddenly John perceived a new emotion in the dark. A stirring that he had often felt before. One that had once consumed him until the day his brother had arrived at his offices in Georgia, out of nowhere. He'd learn from Joseph how to rein in that obsession over the years. In the past few months he had found that Holly's willing attentions coupled with a persistent fixation on one local bartender with dirty blond hair and green eyes had kept this stirring in check and under iron control. He knew exactly why the emotion had grown in strength over the past week. Why he had woken up the past five nights, breathing heavily and feeling the thick liquid warmth spread about his hips and down his thighs under the bed sheets. Why he'd chosen to stop his convoy at the Spread Eagle only three hours ago. Rebecca.

John sighed again and his boots shifted on the rock as Joseph took hold of George, one hand gripping behind his head, the other placed on his chest, and began to speak. Frankly, John had forgotten about the young teenager who had stood obstinately behind a barbed fence, shotgun in hand as she had glared at his approach four years ago. Seeing her at Lawson's offices had triggered the memory and his interaction with her there had only enhanced the remembrance. He had left her that day after she signed the papers and had found that he could not get her eyes out of his head. Those furious dark blue eyes that would not look away, would not falter. He wanted more. He wanted her sin, he wanted to know it, intimately, and he knew he would take immense pleasure in discovering it. It would take many long hours, days, maybe even weeks to pull the confession from her soft lips. Unlike the Steeles, who John, in just one evening, had exposed. Sloth for the reluctant wife. As John watched Joseph dunk George backwards into the waters before the assembled group on the shore, he smirked. And Gluttony for the overzealous husband. No no. Rebecca Shaw would not be so easy to judge.

As Joseph reached out to Helen, the crowd murmuring their congratulations for George as he made his way towards them through the current, freshly cleansed and grinning grandiosely, John experienced that peculiar feeling of his neck hairs standing on end. He turned around on the motley shadowed outcropping and peered into the darkness under the fir trees. Someone was watching him. John's hand reached under his long coat and behind his back to where his pistol holster was pinned on his belt. He gripped the textured handle of the Springfield and strained his eyes. Just his luck if it was a fucking cougar. Only in this backwater county. But a cougar doesn't suddenly click on a cigarette lighter in the dark, the flame sprouting instantly and revealing a craggy face with mottled potmarks and scars and a rugged red beard grown to cover them.

Jacob lit the end of his cigarette and smiled as John relaxed, snuffing out the lighter by pinging the gold cover back on top with one flick of his wrist. He took a long drag as he stepped out of the shadows and onto the outcropping with his youngest brother. He wore his woodland camos with subdued 82nd Airborne patch on his right bicep under a subdued American flag. A rifle with an olive green spray painted Airborne wings just above the safety mechanism was slung over one shoulder and an obscenely large bowie knife was strapped to his left thigh. Mud splattered the forest green khakis knee down, covering his boots thickly. John nodded to him and, releasing his grip on his pistol, clasped his hands behind his back as he turned forward to witness Helen's dunking. Jacob's voice, as always, seemed bored.

"New recruits." Jacob's sharp eyes watched as Joseph pulled Helen, spluttering, up out of the river. His derisive snort was all he needed to convey dismissal to John about the usefulness of the two newest Peggies.

"At least you can have their Confessions, John." John grimaced, dissatisfied,

"Their sins are easy enough to see, Confession will be too swift and their Atonement will mean little." Jacob's smile could have frozen the river twice over and as he finished sucking in the last dregs of the cigarette, he breathed out in a plume of white air and smoke,

"Weak." John silently agreed. As Helen and Joseph began their trek back to shore Jacob turned nonchalantly to John, leaning over to tuck the dead cigarette into one of his cargo pockets. He had consumed the stick in four long drags, much as he devoured everything in life as far as John had observed over the years. Swiftly, efficiently, consuming until the source ran out and its purpose was fulfilled. John assumed that the purpose of Jacob's cigarettes was to stave off hunger, something that plagued his eldest brother. Jacob never seemed to quite fill up. John secretly believed to know his sin. Jacob's Gluttony was far more severe and sinister than the weak man's who had just been cleansed. George Steele's Gluttony was liken to a domesticated dog yapping at the paws of Jacob's primal wolf. But just as Joseph had instilled in John the means by which to overcome his own sin so had he done so for Jacob and as much as John was loathed to think it, Jacob had a steely control that made his own pale in comparison. Jacob was not weak. He had said as much to John a few years ago as he held him down on the rough wooden floors of the Project's Church and Joseph had approached with a freshly sharpened knife. Jacob's quiet voice had whispered above him.

 _My atonement is my constant battle, kid, what's yours?_

Joseph had then started cutting into his chest, branding him for all to see. Sloth.

 _You do not battle with your sin, John. You let it by the wayside. 'Someone else will come along. Someone else will fix it.' Here I am, John. Let me help. Let me fix it._

John winced as he remembered. He was no stranger to pain, but that night, as his brothers, reunited, laid him bare … that night he had never felt more exposed. Unconsciously, one tattooed hand reached up to rub the area under his polo. John froze in realization before dropping his hand back down behind him, his other hand clasping his wrist firmly where it could not be seen. Jacob noticed.

"Something bothering you, kid?" John was saved from having to answer and reveal his transgressions with the arrival of a slight, barefooted figure. How she managed to romp about the woods in the winter with no boots or substantial clothes was beyond, John. More than likely though it was due to the numbness caused by a new batch of Bliss. John's irritation vanished with this new distraction. His coiling smile caused Jacob to raise his eyebrows in his own version of impatience. Jacob did not like Joseph's birds, those young women that donned the title of the Father's Faith. He treated them as he would actually treat birds. As nuisances, creatures that needed to be avoided due to their ability to give away location and warn others of his approach. He grew especially irritated with those new incarnations that tried to interact with him. So far there had been 3, including this one. This new one had learned to avoid Jacob quickly. Not that Jacob didn't recognize their usefulness. Faith had proven time and again that those "services" she provided to Joseph were invaluable to the Project, ensuring the subjugation of those individuals in the county who would cause them problems if not otherwise … persuaded.

Faith nodded to Jacob, her hazel eyes wide, and came to stand lightly by John who held out a hand to her. She placed her hand in his, palm down, and John placed his other hand over it.

"Faith, good evening." Faith smiled brightly up at John, he noticed a slight glazing of her eyes as the moonlight fell across her face. His head tilted slightly as he inspected her, she was showing the signs of deterioration. It wouldn't be this year, or even the next, but soon she would start slipping away, like the ones before her, falling deeper into the Bliss until one day they would find her body in the woods, her eyes glazed over pure white. Faith knew this was her fate. She accepted it. Joseph had already tasked her with looking for a similar soul to her. What that meant exactly, John didn't dinge to care. He just loved playing with the lost little souls before they melted away.

"Hello, brother. I've good news for the Father." John looked down at the crowd on the sandy shore and saw Joseph looking their way. He beckoned them with a nod. Jacob noticed too and started his way down the bank.

"Then you have perfect timing, little sister. Joseph calls." Still gripping her hand, John led her off the rock. The group was huddled in a circle together and Joseph was speaking to them, one hand each on George and Helen's shoulders.

"I am your father. And you are my children. Welcome to Eden's Gate." John was exasperated to see that even Helen now had a beatified expression as her head tilted up to behold Joseph, who again was haloed in moonlight. The man was born for theater. His fingers itched suddenly to tear at Helen's face, shove her back down into the murky waters until her gurgled screams ceased. John didn't realize how tightly he was holding Faith's hand until her free hand reached up to lightly touch his chest. Her voice was soft,

"Your sin. You do not hide it well." John's eyes snapped to Faith's. She wasn't the youngest Faith that Joseph had converted but John had to admit she was the most audacious. Either that or he hadn't made his position clear. His grip grew tighter causing her to grimace as he glared down at her.

"So familiar." Jacob's voice was quiet as he came to stand behind Faith,

"John." John slowly released Faith, who pulled her reddened fingers gently away, but left her other hand on his chest, just above where his carved tattoo would be under his polo. Sloth. John didn't agree with Joseph about his sin. Maybe if he had chosen Lust. But Sloth.

 _It's about unwillingness, John. It's about your unwillingness to care. To connect. You have to love them, John._

Slowly Faith traced out the carved letters on top of the polo cloth. She circled her forefinger around in the shape of an 'O' but then lifted her hand, severing contact with him.

"You shouldn't hate them so much, brother. We are all to be judged." It was Jacob now that grasped her, a large, rough hand clasping the smaller girl's shoulder, turning her towards Joseph and away from John, who was feeling a burning, red fire in his head and chest.

" _Sister._ Maybe you should greet Joseph and the newly faithful." His inflection on the word 'sister' was warning enough for the bliss-infused fairy who flitted forward and placed a hand on Joseph's elbow.

Joseph motioned for his followers to head back up the bank to the house and the vehicles. One of the Peggies handed Jacob a canvased jacket before turning to follow. Jacob took the coat and, stepping up to Joseph, held it open for him to step into. Joseph was dressed in his baptizing attire, white frock and pale green stole with gold trimming. It was a thin material that did nothing against the damp chill of the night, hence the jacket. Regardless Joseph did not seem uncomfortable, the only indication of the cold being his white breath as it coiled around his head and the goosebumps raised on his forearms. Faith was talking as he settled into the coat.

"- last year's crop has shown improvement in application given the chemical enhancement that Peter worked up. He has proven quite useful, Father." One of Joseph's eyebrows raised up as he took hold of Jacob's shoulder and began to walk out of the stream.

"Peter?" Faith's head lowered a fraction and her milky eyes looked up from under long lashes,

"He is new to the project." John's smirk could not be held back,

"He's a local peddler, brother. A drug dealer masquerading as a benevolent pharmacist." John caught Faith's gaze and held it,

"He particularly likes peddling to little girls." Faith's cheeks flushed a fraction but when Joseph turned to smile at her, the flush disappeared and her eyes practically sparkled in admiration. Joseph passed by John and added as a side to him alone,

"Everyone is welcome, John." Joseph continued as if he hadn't said anything his words directed towards Faith again,

"We all have our uses, don't we dear? We can all contribute to the cause. How so in application? Explain." They had come to stop at a fallen tree, out of ear shot of the vehicles and the gathered faithful who waited for the blessed siblings. Joseph took a seat on the rotting, moss-covered bark, bringing Faith down to sit beside him. She was smiling up at him as she placed her hands in his, cradled in his lap. Jacob leaned up against another tree, surveying his surroundings as he stood silently. John just stood, arms crossed and jaw squeezed shut, waiting for his turn to speak. He was impatient, in no small part due to a request he was about to ask of his brother. Faith continued,

"For starters the application period has been increased without exasperated repercussions. We have also tested and determined that the suggestive period is longer and the effects are much stronger. Particularly when it's inhaled or ingested." John's attention was suddenly caught and he broke into the conversation,

"Inhaled?" Up until then the Bliss had been gifted to John by Faith in a grainy, spinach like state that had to be ingested and if it was imbued in a liquid it lost a good bit of its potency. He'd been hearing her speak on possible liquidation methods, but the word 'inhaled' suggested powder format. Faith smiled dreamily and answered,

"Yes, Peter came up with a superb gelling method in the condensing process that allows the flower to be crushed without compromising the molecular structure when combined with the chemicals. The first powder batch has already been tested and has proven to be...pervasive."

"Is it still causing hallucinations?" Jacob's query was specific to him. John knew he didn't particularly care for the Bliss in conducting his own experiments which he did so quietly up in the mountains, away from prying eyes. He considered the drug counterproductive to his methods. He wanted Soldiers. Men and women trained through brutal repetition, but who, if they passed his trials, were carrying out missions of there on volition. Or if not willingly, then at least in a manner in which hallucinations weren't causing them to react abnormally. But lately he'd been more attentive to Faith's reports. It seemed he had a new project in which Bliss was a potential asset. John knew that much given the rumors from the Veteran's Center. Jacob was hunting wolves. A confessor last week had screamed a whole night about white monsters and red crosses. Teeth and claws. He had been one of the ones Jacob had sent him. He'd failed his trials, but he might still be of some use to the project. John was interested in discovering more. It was sure to be fun if it could induce that much fear in a man.

"It depends on what you mean, Jacob." She flicked a hand through the air as if swiping at an imaginary insect. Jacob was quick. John didn't even see him move, his hand was suddenly just wrapped around her tiny wrist, made even smaller in his rough grip. He wasn't squeezing her, but the threat was there. Joseph didn't comment on Jacob's abuse, he just watched intently, his controlled gaze straying from the hands to Jacob's hooded eyes. Faith also stared up at him, herself wide-eyed. She knew just as well as anyone in the Project that it wasn't wise to antagonize the eldest brother. Jacob's voice was calm though as he rephrased his question,

"What I mean, little one, is this new Bliss. Does it still cause hallucinations and if so will it cause an animal, a predator, to disassociate from its environment?" Faith was still warily staring at her wrist in his hand as she answered,

"I don't know. We would have to test it." Suddenly Faith's face grew mischievous and she asked innocently,

"Maybe you can hunt us down a predator, Jacob, to test on. A wolf maybe?" John wondered again if she wasn't the most foolhardy of Joseph's girls. He did have a penchant for them. Always so zealous and overly vocal about it. Jacob, instead of twisting her arm in an abnormal direction, let go with a small smile.

"No need to hunt, Faith. I have just what we need." John had had enough and cut into the conversation,

"As much as I am enjoying this tit for tat," He turned to Joseph and held out a hand which he accepted and allowed his youngest brother to pull him up from the felled tree.

"Might I make a request, brother?" Joseph removed his hand from John's and reached up, placing it softly on his coarse cheek,

"Yes, John?" John's face was unsmiling and his stare intense as he looked into Joseph's eyes. They both had similar eyes. Their mother's eyes. It was the one thing they shared.

"The Shaw residence." Faith smiled at the words. She'd been waiting months for John to finally acquire the land to start sowing her crops.

"I would like to be there tomorrow." Joseph's composed demeanor shifted. His eyes, which had been soft turned hard, the color slowly growing darker. His hand lowered to John's shoulder.

"Tomorrow is a Gathering, John. Why do you want to be at an empty residence tomorrow and not with our family, rejoicing in those newly saved?" John grimaced at his lofty language, but held his brother's stare. The Gathering happened once a year, when all the new recruits gathered at the compound and displayed their atonement to the Faithful. The atonement of course always came at the hands of John. And John was always in attendance to display the sins for which the recruits had atoned for. This had been constant the past 9 years. But something dark was driving him. He'd been lingering at the Shaw house for the past week, waiting for a particular person to show up alone. He so wanted her alone. And she had to stop by sometime to clear out her father's sparse belongings. He, of course, could not tell Joseph this. He'd been working on his response to this unavoidable question since the door of the Spread Eagle had shut behind him and Holly that very evening.

"It is the last day before we can claim the land and I need to be there to ensure compliancy with the contract. The previous owner had a child. She is currently in the area and she wasn't amenable to the agreement when she signed it. I am sure she will try something tomorrow to stop the transaction from being concluded." Joseph blinked,

"If you are concerned then assign one of the Faithful to watch over the land. You are needed with your family." John lost his temper and grabbed his brother's elbow, pulling himself in closer.

"I do not trust the Faithful with this." Silence followed his statement. A silence in which Joseph considered John, studying his face as if he could pull the secrets straight from his head. If anyone knew John better, it was Joseph. It was Joseph that pulled him out of the dark in Atlanta. It was Joseph that heard his confession. It was Joseph that taught him the strength to squash his urges and seek redemption of others. But it was also Joseph that fanned the fires of that old Lust, twisting it and taming it into a passion that was readily beneficial for the Project. Joseph knew him. That's why his words hit home,

"Whatever is driving you, John, I won't be complicit in its temptation of you. Your family needs you, so you will be with them tomorrow. But if you don't trust the Faithful, then trust your brother." With that he turned to look at Jacob, John's grip tightened on Joseph's elbow but Joseph did not show that he felt it. Jacob tilted his head, his eyes on John as he listened to Joseph.

"Scout the land tomorrow, Jacob. Ensure that Ms. Shaw does not try anything that would jeopardize the fulfillment of the contract." Jacob gazed balefully at John as he answered Joseph,

"Of course, Joseph. Anything for the kid." John wanted to kill something. The red feeling that invaded his head and his chest froze him as he looked first at Jacob and then at Joseph. Jacob's voice was soft when he cautioned him,

"John. Patience." John was a child again hiding in a closet, the right side of his face throbbing where their father had hit him with a belt. Joseph held him tightly in his arms, one cool hand pressed gently to his bruised cheek. There was shouting and things being thrown about, hitting walls and breaking. Jacob was closing the closet door, the sliver of light minimizing slowly as he leaned in and whispered,

"Patience, John. It'll all be over soon."

A coldness replaced the raging heat in John's head. He let go of Joseph's elbow and blinked.

"Yes, Joseph." Joseph nodded and released his grip on John's shoulder.

"It's settled. Let's go home." Turning, he helped Faith to her feet and together they walked hand and hand back up the hill. As Jacob passed by John he murmured,

"Ms. Shaw must be headstrong if you're willing to miss a Gathering for her." John stiffened,

"Well I guess you'll see for yourself tomorrow."

John watched as his siblings departed. He stood down on the banks as they entered the van and two of the trucks drove away, leaving behind Holly, the Steele's, and the last truck. He turned back to look out over the water, his thoughts drifting, trying vainly to control his dark emotions. He fantasized of darker things. Slipping into the Spread Eagle and grabbing her from her bed, dragging her up the mountain and throwing her into the Confessional. He quivered at the thought of her screams.

He knew what they all thought of him in the Project. Joseph called him the Baptist. The Faithful called him something else as they whispered to each other in the dark of night. The Inquisitor. They feared him. He was so use to it now. 12 years of blood and tears, of ripping and tearing, confessing…. Even those not a part of the Project, those who didn't know what he did for Joseph, feared him. But they mocked him too. They saw how Jacob and Joseph treated him. The lack of trust. He was the youngest. He was the most compulsive. The one who needed to be watched. And were they wrong? Just thinking about Rebecca Shaw was driving John to his most basic desires. He was back in Atlanta again, holed up in a dark room surrounded by bodies, bottles, and drugs. That same pit in his stomach, that same unfillable chasm in his mind, was returning. He was craving. He was lusting. This damned woman.

"John, did you hear me?" John turned abruptly. He hadn't realized that he had stepped into the water. He was knee deep in the bitterly cold darkness. The moon had fallen behind a bank of thick clouds and the area was void of light, the water's soft laps on the sand the only sound. Holly stood hesitantly on the bank, her stance tense as if waiting for an attack. She started when his dark shape abruptly made its way back to the shore, the rush of water as it parted before his strides abnormally loud. It was like some animal was barreling towards her. John's grip on her arm was excruciating as he pulled her from where she stood into the darkness of the woods, back to the fallen tree that Joseph had sat on. She smelled him. He smelled of spice and sweat. His breath was washing over her as he pushed her down onto the log, releasing his crushing hold. Holly stared up at him wide-eyed. She had only seen him like this twice before. Nostrils flared and eyes, normally light gray blue, now colored like chips of ice. His mouth was a grim line and his muscles were bunched underneath his skin as if he were in the middle of a fight. John was angry. He reach down to his waist and began to unbuckle his belt with one hand, the other wrapping around her throat and beginning to squeeze. And when John was angry he made others suffer for it. He was going to make her scream. The Steele's shut their door tight and pretended to not hear a thing, but Helen Steele could not help shaking in fear. She would remember that night the rest of her life.


	4. Chapter 4: There Are Wolves In the World

Shaw turned off her vehicle and sat there. Snow fell slowly outside from a steel gray sky and she couldn't help but feel an intense isolation sitting in her rental's compartment. Mary had kicked her out of the bar that morning, her face stormy and her bruised hand wrapped up in a wrist band.

"If you're gonna fucking mope about do it someplace else, Becky. Try your dad's place. He always had booze up there. There's certainly none here!" The Spread Eagle's shipment hadn't arrived that day and Mary was pretty sure that the Project had something to do with it. And she was also positive that Shaw's riling of John Seed the night before was the cause of the renewed vigor behind the prohibition. What this all boiled down to was that Shaw was not particularly welcome that morning and especially not while she was in a sour mood herself. That was fair.

She surveyed the property tiredly, her dark rimmed eyes roaming from the barbed-wire property fence up the lane bordered with overgrown brush and to the dilapidated front porch with the lopsided swing seat hanging by one chain. She noticed the local riffraff had gone about vandalizing the place since her dad's death. Windows were broken and there were recent pits in front of the porch where fires had been built. The dark ashes were subdued under a light blanket of snow, turning them a gray color. Someone had found a can of white spray paint and had written obscenities over the chipped walls. She was a little confused by the 'sinner' tag. It was the only one sprayed on in red ink and certainly didn't match the dicks and crude language of the other art. Shaw shrugged it off and opened her car door.

The place was quiet. The Shaw residence was on the outskirts of Holland Valley, closer up near the Whitetail Mountains. The property itself was surrounded by tall firs and pines that functioned as a windbreak, but if you went back down the lane and around the curve you could look out over Holland County. She'd almost crashed her car on her way up. It was the first time she caught a glimpse of the construction of a billboard sign. She'd have to ask Mary why the hell the Seeds were building a sign that just said, 'YES'. It was only an outline now, but she saw they had intentions of filling in the frame with white, reflective panels and she knew after it was complete that the whole entire Valley would be able to see it. Her sense of unease had come back with a vengeance and she had almost turned her car around right then with the intent of leaving Falls End without a single good bye.

She stood in the snow on the lane thinking on this unease, getting cold flakes in her hair and on her eyelashes. She was putting it off. She was putting off trudging up that drive and getting into the house. What drove her forward, finally, was the howling of a wolf. It was 10 in the morning but the sun still wasn't out, unable to pierce the thick snow clouds, and the world was a gray shadow, almost like twilight. She couldn't be sure a hungry wolf wouldn't brave the day and attack her out here in the middle of nowhere.

Her boots scrapped the porch steps, her gloved hand disturbing the snow piled up on the wooden hand rail. Memories were knocking on the walls inside her head, sneaking in through the cracks of time. She'd made every effort to forget about Falls End over the past 4 years, but here she was and there were too many reminders to not dredge up those suppressed remembrances. It's why she'd been so angry, why she'd been drinking too much, since arriving there 6 days ago. It's why she had waited until the last day to come to this place. She stopped at the top of the stairs, her boot reaching out to knock more snow off a large clay flower pot stationed there like a sentry. Yellow paint peaked out, a crookedly daubed sunflower chipped and peeling. She'd given the pot to her mother when she was 6. Her mother had planted flowers in it the first three years. Then her father had started using it as an ashtray. There was a large crack on the back where he had picked it up and thrown it at her as she stormed out after an argument when she was 14. Seeing the crack, Shaw's eyes darkened and her chin tilted down into her scarf, she almost lashed out at the stupid thing. Instead she reached one hand out to the battered door knob (the screen door that was normally there was in the front yard in one of the ashy piles) and forced the door open with one shoulder. Her father had never kept the damned thing locked.

The inside of the house was moderately unscathed by the vandals. There were a lot of empty beer cans and a couple empty plastic bags (some chips and marshmallows) scattered on the wooden floor in the family room and someone had used the fire place there but had not cleaned it out. The ashtrays strewn across the house were all overflowing. The kitchen was gnarly looking but it seemed that had been her father's fault, not the house crashers. Dirty pots and pans and chipped plates and cups filled the sink to capacity and the smell of rotting food (specifically meat) filled the area around the trashcan and non-functioning fridge. The tiled floor also needed some serious cleaning, it's like her father had tracked half the woods in there. The kitchen table was also piled high with magazines and bills, as well as shell casings and bits and bolts and tools for his weapons. Shaw had already sold those off. The day he died he'd had two of his rifles and a hand gun with him in his crushed truck and Sheriff Whitehorse had sent one of his new deputies to pick up the other 2 hand guns, assault rifle, and bow and all the easily located ammunition. They'd held it for her and she'd been asked to pick them up two days ago. The only thing she had kept was her father's bowie knife from his time in Desert Shield. One of her earliest memories was of him in front of the fire place, logs cracking and flames silhouetting his frame as he sat on his Army issued pop out field chair, large bowie knife with the sand dune colored grip in one hand and sharpener in the other, methodically dragging it back and forth along the straight edge, stopping just before the serrated portion below the hilt. He'd have her sit before him and he'd watch her strip one of his rifles or his hand gun and methodically clean each piece, her small hands grimy and covered in black streaks. She'd been 7 the first time he let her clean them after a day of shooting. It was one of the very few memories she had of her father that she actually could stand to remember.

Her hand dragged along the hallway wall to the back of the house. The cracks between the wood panels like bumps on the side of the road. Her mother had put pictures up on these walls a long time ago and they were still there. Outdated pictures, obviously of Kodak quality or less. Old black and white photos of the Shaw ancestors and newer color photos from the 70s and 80s of a much younger Monica and Michael Shaw. Their wedding photo was the height of 80s frill and lace fashion. There were photos of her as a baby being held in her parent's arms. A photo of her father with a much younger and skinnier Whitehorse dressed up in rodeo attire in front of a paddock about ready to ride a bull. A photo of her mother holding her hand as a 6 year old dressed in her dirty soccer uniform after an intense game where she'd run into the goal post and lost one of her front teeth. Her child self was grinning carelessly up at the photographer, her father. There was a church family photo. A picture of her mother with 4 other women holding flute glasses of champagne at a fancy restaurant. Another of her and her father getting into his truck (almost brand new at the time) with gear to go hunting duck. She was coming to the end of the hall and her fingers stopped trailing and came to rest on the last frame. These were her father's service photos, the first being from his time in Desert Shield. He'd been 24, his face decidedly pale but his chest puffed out displaying the three chevrons on his chest and PC. The newer service photos were from his time as a LT in Kosovo. His face was harder in these pictures and there was something decidedly dead in his eyes. It'd been taken after the war. She'd remembered her father before this photo was taken. She'd just turned 9 right before he left out as a National Guard call up for the Kosovo mission. Before he went away he'd used to read her bed time stories. He use to take her hunting and taught her how to shoot and fish. Before 1999 he'd been gentle with her mother if not a little hard spoken if they argued. Then he came home. That's when the flower pot started to become an ash tray. That's when he stopped hugging her and reading to her. That's when he starting drinking. And instead of letting her clean his guns after hunting together, he started yelling and waving them at her, calling her a disrespectful little shit, just like her mother. That's when the arguments started and her mother got 'clumsy'.

Shaw had stopped at the Kosovo service photo, her eyes glaring at her father's dour face, her fingers pressing down hard enough on the glass cover that she could hear the creaking from the pressure. After this photo there were no other photos. None of her growing up, nothing older than 10. No new pictures of her father or mother. Just this one. This exhausted looking bastard with his dead eyes and dark green uniform. She did lash out at this, her fist colliding with the glass pane, the spider web cracks instantaneously crisscrossing across it, small and large shards falling to the wood floor with a tinkle.

She pulled her hand back, her fingers spreading out and drops of blood flicking out onto the wall and photo. A bit of glass was stuck in one of her knuckles and she stared at it and the damaged picture for a few seconds, her breath coming out heavy and loud as she attempted to calm herself. She made a grunting noise and, after looking into his eyes one last time, spat on the picture and turned on her heel to the last rooms in the house. She disregarded her old room. Anything of value in that tiny corner of the house was long gone. She hadn't taken much with her when she left Falls End the first time but what she had taken was all she had wanted from that home. She picked the glass out of her knuckle and flung it into the old room, which her father had converted into a junk pile. Shaw had been meticulously clean her whole entire life. When she had left, she had made bed and made sure there was no trash on the ground. Hell, she'd even swept the damned floor. Now the room was filled with mismatched gear and boxes of old clothes and papers. There was a wood working table as well and large tires stacked up near the small closet. The twin bed was relatively clear of belongings. It seemed someone had been sleeping in it. Shaw shrugged.

She really only wanted one thing from this place. And it wasn't in her old room. She pushed open the door to her parent's bedroom across the hall instead. It creaked slowly open. She paused, wordlessly shocked at the relative cleanliness of the bedroom. There was a thin layer of dust, but besides that the bedroom looked as if it hadn't been touched since her mother's death. By vandals or her father. The bed was even made, her mother's old floral comforter tucked in around the lumpy mattress. She shook her head and pushed the door all the way open and stepped in, making her way to the large closet. Grasping the handles, she slid the closet open and knelt down. The place smelled like moth balls and dust and it got worse when she pushed the clothes aside on their hangers. There it was. She reached into the shadows and drug out an old record box. She'd been through this box before, 4 years ago, to grab her social security card and her birth certificate. The last time she went through it she'd breezed past a lot of the paperwork in it. Now she slowly riffled through it and there!

She pulled out a dusty, yellowed folder with her mother's hand writing on it. The first few documents in the folder were letters from her mother to her father while he was deployed in Iraq in 1990, talking about their newborn girl. There was the deed to her father's truck. Her father's deployment orders, two military award certificates and two actual awards, one in green and white and the other in burgundy and white, there was even a silver star. Her mother's bachelor's degree from Iowa was in there. Music major. A handful of music sheets with handwritten notes on it and flowery titles for the made up songs. Finally she got to it. It was a letter. Her mother had known she would go through this folder after she died. Her mother, despite her unrealistic faith expectations, knew her very well. She could never connect with Shaw, but she always knew what her child was going to do next. Shaw had been too angry with her mother before to dinge taking the letter out and reading it. Hell, she hadn't even honored her mother's death bed wishes to have her body buried up at the Project's complex.

But it was four years later. And though her anger with her father was still raging at full, her resentment towards her mother had simmered over the years into a pity. And now that the house was going to the Seeds this was her last chance to read her mother's words. She stood up from her knees and walked the short distance to the bed, taking a seat on one corner of her mother's side. The dress bureau was closer to her and Shaw's reflection stared back passively at her. She hadn't wanted to come to Falls End. But she had. She hadn't wanted to come here. But she had. And now she didn't want to read this letter. But she would. Her finger tore into the corner of the envelope and pulled across the top. She popped open the envelope edges and slid the folded letter out. It was written on a torn out composition notebook page. It smelled like her mother. Lilac.

 _I forgive you._

Those were the first words. Shaw took a long breath in and then exhaled for an even longer breath out. Of course.

 _I wanted to be buried with the Faithful, but knowing you, Rebecca, you probably put me with the rest of the Shaw's in that dusty, old mausoleum. So I forgive you. I know how much anger festers in your soul. I've seen it building over the past years. Ever since your father came home from Kosovo._

Shaw's fingers gripped the edges of the paper tighter, causing them to crinkle inward when she read the next words.

 _Forgive him, Becky._

She almost didn't continue. Forgive him? Forgive HIM!? Every slight, every raised hand, every verbal slap, every physical abuse, every fight they ever had rushed across Shaw's memories. PTSD my ass. What father calls his own daughter a whore? What father lays hands on his daughter when she steps up to defend her mother? And she'd cared for him for the longest time. She HAD tried to forgive him. How could she have not? She remembered the good times. Before all the shit started. But how many times had she driven his drunk ass home from town? How many times had she washed him after finding him lying in his own puddle of vomit and piss? How many times did she clean up after him when he went into a rage and started throwing things about the house? She tried to forgive him again and again until she couldn't. She remembered the night that she did stop trying. 16 years old and he had broken his and mom's wedding china, one plate at a time, when he came home from drinking and there was no dinner on the table. Mom had been worshipping with the Seeds up on the mountain. Her father had eventually run out of plates and steam and had sat down on one of the kitchen chairs, smelling of whiskey. He'd looked up at Shaw and saw her standing in the doorway and he'd slurred for her to make him something to eat. Shaw had looked about the kitchen. At the shattered china, that her mother was most proud of. She'd looked up at her father then and stated in a dead tired voice, _I hate you._

After that incident it had been a constant battle between Michael Shaw and his daughter. She started giving just as good as receiving, the last three years of their time living together had been extremely volatile. The only thing that had kept her there was her mother. Thankfully the homestead was so far out that the police were never called unless her mother actually called them, which happened once or twice, especially towards the end. One night, about a month before her mother's death, Sheriff Whitehorse had shown up himself and dragged Shaw off of her father. The two had been kicking and hitting each other on the ground when he arrived in his vehicle, lights running. She remembered the Sheriff grabbing her by the scruff of her neck and throwing her towards the fence line. She'd screamed at the Sheriff that night. Asking where the hell he'd been the past few years. She had accused him of knowing what was going on. She accused him of not giving a shit. Not doing his job. She'd been so angry. After the incident of course she'd settled down enough to realize that that wasn't the case. Sheriff was never called out unless her mother called him out, but even on nights that no one asked for him he would drive all the way up there to check in. He'd even managed to settle them down once or twice. But that night if hadn't mattered, her mother was dying and everyone in Falls End was complicit in allowing her to die in a home with a man who would beat her.

Shaw sat on that bed for a bit, thinking on all of this, her eyes hooded, staring blankly at her mother's letter. She shook her head again and finally continued reading.

 _You know just as well as me that he's still the same man. Just broken. We all break, Rebecca. But again. I know you. And I know him. Two people so similar. You truly are your father's daughter. The Shaw blood runs thick and you will never be able to hide from it. I pray the old Ariss blood tempers the Shaw in you, but there's no denying that there's a monster in you both. It rages in you and constantly it will try to break free. The war killed the cage keeper in Michael, but you are not beaten yet, Rebecca. It might just be a mother's preconception about her only child, but you're special. You were meant for greater things._

Shaw remembered the old tales her mother use to tell her about her side of the family. The Ariss. They all lived out in Massachusetts, or back overseas in Scotland, and Shaw hadn't spoken with them or even seen them since she was a small child. Shaw had no connection to them.

 _I won't talk of the Project._

Again Shaw had to stop herself from ripping the paper into tiny shreds, but thankfully her mother had foreseen this and continued quickly,

 _All I can leave you with is this, little one._

Little one. It was her mother's term of endearment. She'd used it even after Shaw began to tower over her at the age of 13.

 _Where ever you go. Whatever you choose to do with your life. Stay true. You don't have my faith. Sadly, all you've inherited from your father is a lovely face and a hot temper and little much else. I don't have money to give you or even land to call your own. Your father's family is gone from this world and all that is left of his blood is you. My family will not see me, so you won't even have them. It will just be you._

Shaw stopped reading. She suddenly felt empty. Just bone tired. And that emptiness she had felt for almost her entire life was slowly surrounding her, digging into her mind and her chest. Usually the rage was at equal odds with this depression, this astounding unease, but her mother's words had driven off the red heat. It was just her. Alone.

 _Little one. Do not let your heart be troubled._

The next words in that sentence, Shaw fully expected to follow the Psalm her mother was so obviously quoting. 'Do not let your heart be troubled. Have faith in God and faith in me.' But it didn't. Her mother surprised her.

 _You are not alone. Just look around this place and see you are not alone. I'm about to die. I have striven so desperately these last few years. So greedily. I've tried to find redemption in God and in Faith and all I have found –_

Shaw lightly touched the smeared ink where a tear drop had fallen, obscuring the line. Her mother had been crying when she wrote this.

 _\- are weaknesses. I let you down, little one. I've done so for a while now. But you don't have to be like us. Please don't be like us._

Shaw couldn't stop her eyes from watering. Her mother had known her much more than she had believed. She had known her well enough that she'd even guessed at her fears with an uncanny accuracy.

 _Stay true. You were meant for greater things, Rebecca. I know it._

That was the end of the letter. Shaw scanned the lines one more time, tracing the dipping 'y's and the elegant curves of the 'R's on her name. Her mother's hand had grown shaky towards the end and the letter showed that, but even in her deteriorated state she still maintained some of her strong penmanship from before the cancer. She folded the letter slowly, creasing one fold and then another until it was small enough to fit into her jean pocket. It was the only thing she had come for. It was the only thing she would take. Nothing else in the house meant anything to her. Not even the pictures.

She got up from the bed and walked out of the room and back down the hallway, past the broken picture with the blood smear across her father's face. She pushed the front door open aggressively, letting it slam behind her, and came to a halt outside on the porch, her breath coming out in a long sigh as she stared up at the unending, steel gray sky. A light snow was falling still, but the temperature had dropped. Shaw pulled her gloves out of her coat pocket and absentmindedly put them on, still gazing up at the swirling mass of grey overhead. She should have been paying attention.

A low growl made Shaw's head whip around to the property line which ended at a stand of pine trees only a few yards away. There amongst the low brush crouched the largest wolf she had ever seen. She hadn't noticed it at first, mostly because she'd been distracted in her own thoughts and gazing at the sky, but also because its white coat blended into the snowy ground. If she'd been standing next to the brute its head would have come to her neck and its jaws could have wrapped around one of her thighs easily. Its snout was curled up in a snarl and its gold eyes were focused on her as she stood on the snow encrusted porch, frozen. Most disturbing was a large red cross that had been slathered onto the creature's head, one vertical stripe reaching from the center of its ears and down its snout and the other horizontal stripe traced above its brow.

Shaw didn't even have a second to look at the behemoth before it suddenly burst from its cover towards her. She made a disturbed grunting noise and, reacting on a burst of fear-fueled adrenaline, reached behind her for the doorknob. Only to find it stuck. She had let the bloody thing slam shut behind her in her rush to get out of the house and now, as almost always happened to the front door during winter, it was stuck on its hinges. She twisted and pushed once and when it failed to open, and uncomfortably aware of the seconds passing by, she bunched up her muscles for her last effort and slammed her shoulder against the thick wood. She felt of burst of elation when the door violently swung inward, but this was quickly replaced by a feeling of her stomach dropping to her feet when she lost her balance and tumbled face first into the entrance hallway. She wasn't going to have enough time to close the door. She whipped around on the ground and made an attempt to slam the door shut with one booted foot, but as the door swung back towards its frame the wolf was suddenly blocking it, pushing back on the door's forward momentum with a large, muscular haunch.

Shaw froze, her eyes wide as she stared up at the monster from her position on the ground. This thing shouldn't exist. It was too big. It filled the doorway and made the hallway seem small in comparison. One of its fangs was the length of her forefinger and she could feel the heat from its breath wash over her as it advanced. She backed up slowly, pushing her body down the hallway on her ass with her legs and arms, afraid to even try and stand, certain that the movement would cause it to pounce. It wasn't moving fast anymore. It was stalking forward, one mammoth paw being placed down at a time, claws cutting gouges into the timbers. It snapped and snarled as it progressed. Shaw could have sworn it was grinning. Suddenly, she came to a halt when her gloved fingers hit some of the shards of glass from the busted picture she had punched a few minutes ago. The sharp tinkling noise they made gave her an idea. In less than a few short seconds it was standing over her, its muzzle tilted down towards her own, its front paws placed on either side of her as she cowered beneath it. Shaw didn't make a sound except for her heavy breathing as the heat of the animal pressed down on her oppressively. She would have waited for the beast to rip her throat out, but Shaw was particularly keen not to die and she had managed to get one of the larger glass shards into her hand. She was about to lunge at the wolf and attempt to slash one of its eyes out but a loud, piercing whistle ripped through the air.

The wolf's head whipped up, its ears facing forward and a whine issuing from its throat. The whistle came again and the creature, taking one last sniff of her, turned about and loped out of the house, causing the wood floor to shake beneath her. Shaw was left staring at where its head had just been and after three large intakes of breath, she let out a loud expletive and pushed herself up from the ground. She rushed to the door and made to shut it but stopped when she got a good look outside.

There, standing at the front gate next to her rental, as cool as you please, was none other than Jacob Seed, his red hair and beard the only spark of color to be seen outside of the red on the wolves face. And, to Shaw's enraged chagrin, at his feet crouched the same ominous white wolf. She was so taken aback that she said nothing and just stared for a good 10 seconds. And then she let out a loud curse, which was met by a low growl from the animal. Jacob's rational, calm voice reached across the distance in greeting,

"Good morning, Ms. Shaw."

"Is that your bloody wolf?" Jacob's smile didn't quite reach his eyes when he looked at the creature beside him, which had gone to lay down at his booted feet. Even laying down, its head reached up to his thigh. Jacob used one non-gloved hand to scratch the beast's ears. Shaw could not believe the audacity.

"It'd be a mistake to say the wolf is mine. It'd be an even bigger mistake to believe it." As if it could hear him, the wolf made to snap at the large man, but Jacob was quick and his hand hard and fast as it came down on the creature's neck heavily, submitting the animal beneath him. It made that whining growl again, but immediately stopped trying to snap at him. Jacob held this position for a long moment, his eyes slowly shifting from the wolf's golden ones to Shaw, a few yards away. He released his grip and the wolf scurried away back into the woods, bounding across the large distance as quick as a shadow. Shaw's grip tightened on the shard of glass still in her hand.

"You called that thing out of my house, so did you sic it on me too?" Jacob began to move forward, his strides slow and methodic. When he reached the bottom of the porch steps Shaw raised the shard slightly at her side and warned,

"Not a step closer, Mr. Seed." Jacob stopped, one foot on the first step, and glanced from the glass shard in her hand to her eyes. She'd seen eyes like his before. Her father had had eyes like him, hooded and sunk in. She wondered what he saw in hers that caused his lips to twitch.

"I did not call the wolf on you, Ms. Shaw… You should be more careful in the mountains, though. There are lots of wolves up here. You're lucky I've been training this one." Shaw nearly spluttered in disbelief.

"Training!? Who _trains_ wolves the size of horses?" Jacob's grin was extremely unnerving and Shaw noticed that not only did he have a large bowie knife strapped to his left thigh but he also had a hand gun strapped to his right thigh and a rifle hung on his back, over his corduroy, fur lined coat on a three point strap.

"It's a hobby, ma'am." Shaw suddenly felt ridiculous holding the piece of glass and she let it drop to the snow after scanning the property line to make sure the wolf was really gone. She leaned against the door frame and crossed her arms,

"Some hobby. Why are you here, Mr. Seed?" Though Shaw was trying to portray an uncaring air, she was on edge and extremely uneasy in Jacob's presence. She also realized suddenly that he had snuck up a few steps since her warning to stop, she hadn't even noticed. Of all the Seed brothers, it was Jacob that had always made her the wariest. There was something about him. It wasn't as if the other brothers didn't seem unhinged, it was just the way that Jacob looked at everyone.

Shaw remembered an old horse breeder from her childhood. Rodney Townsend. The old codger had had a pasture in the valley and he had trained race horses there. Every year, horse owners had come up from Missoula or from out of state to have their horses trained by him. They'd be corralled together in one of the large paddocks on the property and Mr. Townsend would come out to look at them. The way he had done it reminded Shaw of the way that Jacob looked at everyone. With an eye that could pick out every weakness. Every flaw. Dispassionately. Mr. Townsend hadn't given a shit about the horses. He'd only cared about whether he could train them or not. If he couldn't he quickly told the owners so and not an argument could be made for him to keep them. 'Untrainable.' That's all he would repeat. For those that he kept, he worked every day and took a hard hand to the ones who slacked. Invariably those he trained went on to become excellent race horses. Or they burned out. She couldn't tell which horses were luckier. The ones not picked or the ones that were.

Jacob was looking at her now the same way. Calculating. The scarring on his face and neck jerked and he smiled,

"My brother was worried about the property. He was certain that you would try and do something today that would break the contract agreement. I was on a walk anyways and I thought I'd stop by. It's good that I did." He spoke the last bit, indicating with one hand the direction in which the wolf had disappeared. Shaw frowned, snorting derisively,

"I'm assuming you mean John when you say 'brother'? I told him I don't give a shit about this property. The Project can have it. Thanks for stopping by Mr. Seed." She stepped out of the doorway and let the door slam back shut behind her. Squaring her shoulders she resolutely walked pass Jacob on the stairs. He didn't move, causing her to brush his shoulder and as she stamped down the rest of the stairs to the snow covered path she felt him follow her with his eyes. It was like they were boring holes into her skull, digging in. She was halfway toward her SUV when he called out in that calm cadence of his,

"Be more careful, Ms. Shaw. I might not be around next time. And there are wolves in these woods." Shaw thought of her father. She thought of John and of Joseph and his Project. She thought of Jacob. She stopped at the door to her rental, one gloved hand on the handle, and looked around the property briefly before returning her gaze to Jacob on the porch of her old home.

"I was here in these woods long before you and your brother's, Jacob." He had turned back to her, one hand hanging loosely by his side, the other leaned up on the snowy railing, his head tilted down staring at her over the distance under hooded brows. He smirked at her words and her last parting shot as she pulled open her car door and prepared to step in,

"There have always been wolves here." Her door closed shut with a satisfying thump and the vehicle rumbled to life. Shaw reversed and turned back down the lane. She didn't take her eyes off the rearview mirror and Jacob leaning on the porch railing watching her go until she had rounded the far bend and lost sight of him. As she sped down the mountain her one thought was that she needed to get out of Falls End today. That. And she could really go for a drink.


	5. Chapter 5: Lay to Rest

Shaw picked up her father's ashes immediately when she got back to Falls End. No one ever got signal around this place on cell phones. Falls End, the Holland and Henbane Valleys, and the Whitetails were like black holes for cell phone signal. Hope County was a dead zone. Even radio signals were shoddy connections, given the mountainous terrain and the radioactive spike interference from the mines in the Henbane. Everyone just kept a landline like it was the 90s. So it was Mary May who gave the message to Shaw when she came back, distracted from the goings on up at the homestead with Jacob Seed and the Wolf. The relief she felt at the message made her experience a twinge of guilt. She told Mary as much and when pressed about the reason why Shaw answered honestly. She was going to pick up those ashes now and put them in the Shaw Mausoleum and then get the fuck out of dodge.

Mary didn't blame her for it though. She helped Shaw pack up her few belongings from the apartment above the bar and toted down one of her duffels. As she stuffed it into the back seat of Shaw's rental she told her that her father was out on a truck run. Mr. Fairbanks often drove trucks for county produce companies and the local brewery, The Whistling Beaver, as a side income. Shaw fondly recollected the times he had taken her on a truck ride as a small kid in his stylized trailer, which supposedly he had taken to calling the Widowmaker. Mary told her not to worry and that she would tell her mom and dad about her leaving and give them Shaw's well wishes. As she finished packing the back with Shaw's gear, Mary stepped away from the SUV and gave her a long hug. Shaw felt Mary's hug squeeze tighter,

"Becky?"

"Yeah, Mary?" Mary mumbled over her shoulder,

"Don't come back." Shaw wasn't taken aback by the words. She knew what Mary May meant alright. Mary was stuck here. Tied to Falls End by family obligation and a melancholy hope that maybe everything would pan out alright. But Shaw. Shaw was free. And Mary was giving her her blessing to leave. Shaw pulled herself out of the hug, holding on to Mary's biceps as she leaned back to survey her.

"Thank you. I really hope everything turns out alright." She released Mary's arms and turned to her SUV, opening up the driver's door. She gave one more parting word as she turned on the vehicle and rolled down the window to speak. She looked up at Mary. Strong, beautiful Mary May who had the loveliest green hazel eyes and a smile that could put the sun's shine to shame. Shaw gave her one of her rare smiles. Mary raised her eyebrows in shock at the display,

"You give those Seeds hell, Mary May." Mary's smile lit up and Shaw was pleased to see it.

"Damn right, Shaw." Mary May waved goodbye on the side of the road on Falls End's main street until she was a tiny speck in Shaw's side mirror.

She picked up her father's ashes from the Sheriff's office. Sheriff Whitehorse was there when she pulled up to the back door. He was still the large, potbellied man that Shaw remembered from her teenage years. Though he had taken to sporting a cowboy hat to cover his receding hairline. Also he was growing in a magnificent mustache.

"Becky." Sheriff had a deep voice. No one would ever mistake it. It did sound infinitely more tired than Shaw was used to hearing. She was shocked to see wrinkles around his eyes. He was getting old.

"Sheriff. You have daddy's ashes?" He nodded and beckoned her to follow him into the offices. The back door led past the two holding cells with bunk bed cots and corner toilets and small sinks. Whitehorse took off his hat when he entered and jingled down the hallway to the office directly after the holding cells, both currently empty. An inquisitive face poked around the corner of one office door further down. He looked about her age. Young, with sparkling hazel eyes and a freshly pressed deputy's uniform on. He jumped up from his seat eagerly when Whitehorse rumbled his way,

"Pratt. Get Michael Shaw's ashes for the Miss. Come in, Becky." As Deputy Pratt moved to do as he was told, Shaw entered the Sheriff's personal office suite. It hadn't changed much in 4 years. He motioned for her to sit down on one of the sofa chairs in the corner of the large room where he entertained guests, softly shutting the door behind him. As she took a seat he passed her a Coke from the cooler next to a small bookcase under a hanging photo of Salt and Pepper Ranch, the old corral him and her father use to do rodeos out of as younger men. Shaw accepted the Coke and popped the top open with a hiss as Whitehorse took a seat in the opposite sofa chair with a large sigh and an audible crack from his knees.

"Getting old, Sheriff." Whitehorse made a face at her,

"Shut it, Becky. I'm still spry enough to toss you about." That brought a small smile to Shaw's face. She didn't doubt the man. As much as she had had hard times with him in the past, she had nothing but cautious respect for him. She might think that in his shoes she'd be more aggressive at attacking issues in the county, but she also knew that it was Whitehorse keeping the thin fabric of civilization together in this place. And maybe it was his diplomacy and caution that ensured this. But Shaw was still reminded of the Seeds presence unchecked and the way her father had gone years unprosecuted for his abuse. So. A cautious respect. At least he was trying. He could have just lied down when the Project rolled in but he was making every attempt to work within the law to keep the peace.

"I won't say I'm sorry about your daddy, Shaw. I know you and him were at odds and you're probably only here to see for yourself that he's dead." Shaw tipped her can of Coke towards him with a sardonic smirk,

"You'd be right." Whitehorse's face took a more serious look on, his bushy brows furrowing in as he fiddled with the large hat in his khaki'd lap, eyes downcast. She almost choked on her Coke with what he offered next,

"I will say sorry about never having done anything to help you." Shaw slowly swallowed the Coke in her mouth so as not to gag on it and Whitehorse continued.

"I knew Mike had changed when he came back from the war. I just –" His solemn eyes finally looked up into Shaw's unwavering stare. They betrayed the guilt and remorse he so obviously felt.

"I should have seen it sooner. It started getting obvious and then he wasn't even trying to hide it anymore and I can't help but think… I allowed it to happen and by the time I tried to fix it – well. By then it was too late. I let the memory of the man cloud my ability to see what he had become. And my –" He paused trying to find the word. Shaw had placed her Coke on the stand beside her, forgotten, as she gripped the arm rests on her seat, her body stiff, at attention as she listened to this man continue,

"- my failure. It caused you and your mother great pain, Becky. And the only thing I can do now is say sorry. And that's not enough." They sat there in silence for a very long moment, the Sheriff waiting for Shaw to say anything about what he had just confessed to her. In that time, Deputy Pratt knocked on the door, stepped in briefly, immediately sensing the tension in the air and choosing just to place the container of ashes on the coffee table before them without a word and leaving immediately, shutting the door quickly behind him. Shaw looked down at the small container between the two of them and then back up at the Sheriff. She suddenly reached out one hand and placed it on top of her father's ashes, her voice was soft and meant more for herself than for him,

"Earl." He flinched at his name, but gazed resolutely at her across the table.

"I won't say you did your best. But if I know one thing." She looked up into Sheriff Whitehorse's eyes and finished,

"No one allows us to do anything. Michael did what he did to us all on his own. You could have trekked up to the property every night and he still would have done it." That was all Shaw had for the Sheriff and he knew that was all he was going to get. And it seemed to be enough for him. He stood as she did, her hand pulling the ashes up and into the crook of her arm.

"I'll see you out, Ms. Shaw."

The clouds had cleared, the snow had stopped falling, and the sun was shining weakly down on the white landscape. The cemetery was quiet. Grey stone heads poked up out of the white drifts on the ground and a tall steel fence stood out starkly, surrounding the large patch of land. Shaw stood silently before the mausoleum. It was the biggest structure in the area. It housed the founding families of Hope County. The county hadn't been founded so long ago, some 150 years back, but here were all those at its settlement. The Whitehorse family was in there. The Palmers, originally known as the Blacks. So too the Ryes and the Fairbanks. The Townsends and the Jones. The Drubmans, the Boshaws, and, of course, the Roosevelts. Even the Steeles and Packards. The Shaws were also chiseled onto a few of the tiles. 14 of them in total, to include her mother. There was a free spot for her too. Rebecca Celeste Shaw was engraved on the tile just below Monica Ariss Shaw.

Her birth year stared back at her and the dash before a blank space. She wondered about that blank space for a moment. Shaw didn't think that she would ever allow herself to return to this place, let alone be entombed there. But being there. In the presence of the founders long dead. Suddenly Shaw felt a rising tide of anger. A fury that was tied intrinsically to the Seeds and their damned Project. She silently cursed them under her breath. The feeling was almost enough to make her wonder if she might not just stay. Take back her father's home and thumb her nose at John, Jacob, and Joseph.

But then she felt the weight of her father's ashes in the smooth white granite container weighing heavy in her arms. This hadn't been her home for a long time. She parted the curtain on the small compartment carved into the granite wall of the mausoleum. She then placed Michael Shaw's ashes inside. Bending down she lifted the carved tile from the ground and fitted it over the compartment, shutting her father inside for all of eternity. The dates of his birth and death stared back at her. He hadn't made good use at all of that dash in between them. Michael Raleigh Shaw. She would never forgive this man.

With that final thought she turned away from the family wall and trekked back up the path to her lonely vehicle. It was time to leave Hope County.

"She's gone." Jacob lounged in the doorway of John's 'Confessional'. This was where his youngest brother took the newly cleansed and broke them down, exposing their sin, as John liked to call it. It was a small, claustrophobic room with a dirty concrete floor and thick wood walls, one solid metal chair in the very center of the room, bolted down. A single bulb hung from the ceiling on a wire and it was the only illumination in the room, casting the corners and high ceiling into deep shadow. Usually the walls were adorned with 'atonements'. These were strips of ragged skin with tattooed letters etched across them. The newer atonements would have bits of blood and sinew dripping from the edges. The older bits would appear shriveled up and would rustle like dry paper if the door was opened too roughly. They were John's collection of sins. Dark secrets he wheedled out of the Faithful on long gloomy nights. Secrets he extracted with murmured words and sharp tools amidst grunts and screams.

After the sins had been uncovered, when the last of a person's secrets screamed past the confessor's lips, John would take his tattoo gun and carve those secrets onto their skin, deep and bold. Then, holding them down with his knees, he would cut the sins out, and, rising, would triumphantly hold the ragged strip of sin and skin above the writhing repentant, praising them for their courage. He would then staple the new atonement into the planks of the Confessional's walls. They would line the room, starting from high up and almost always reaching down to the floor.

Jacob had watched once, fascinated at John's patience, how the youngest of the Seed brothers managed to reach into the darkest places in a person and coax out every last bit of detail. John almost 'saw' people better than even he. But then they'd come to the end and he had watched as John's supposed control dissolved and his mask had fallen from his face and Jacob had seen what he had always known was there. A sick pup. Not that he was any better in his handling of the Faithful, but Jacob took no distinct pleasure in it. Not in the way that John did. He could see the need for it that John had. He fed off these Confessions, like some insatiable vampire, gorging on blood.

Currently the walls were bare except for the tiny holes left behind by the old atonements and the burgundy rust colored splotches that were the remnants of them. John had taken them all down the night before in preparation for the Gathering that had been held all of that day. Joseph had started the tradition about nine years ago. He was aware of John's Confessional. In truth, Jacob didn't really know what Joseph thought of John's pastime, but he allowed it and even incorporated it into the Project's worship. Faithful would come together on Gathering Day and they would feast, conduct service, and then burn that year's atonements as the newly Atoned of the previous year were recognized as true brethren. Jacob of course never went to these things. He didn't hold much to the faith aspect of the Project. Joseph's prophecies and premonitions did not move him. Joseph knew this. His brother also knew that the only thing he needed to do to keep his 'Soldier' in the fold was to give him purpose. And boy did he. Jacob was satisfied with his position and the past 12 years had made him beholden to his younger brother, the 'Father'. Enough so that he would never leave. But not enough to entice him to take part in the frills and jumped up spectacle of Eden's Gate. John loved it though.

Jacob often wondered if all those times he'd shielded the kid hadn't been wasted. Why had he protected him? The damned system had taken the toddler away from him the moment he burnt down their first foster home. He hadn't seen him again for almost 20 years and then suddenly Joseph and the kid were picking him up off the street in Rome, GA. Even then John had been scared of him. Of all the brother's, Jacob looked the most like their father. In retrospect, this might be why John was constantly wary around him. Though the boy did put up a valiant effort to hide this. The John he met in Rome though was not the same young, innocent child of yesteryears. This was a John after the Duncan's got a hold of him. Breaking the innocence that Jacob had remembered fondly and instead helping this new creature build a human mask, giving him the skill to feed off of sin. Jacob would have murdered the Duncans the same way he had murdered their first foster family if they had still been alive when he discovered what they had done. But it seemed John had beaten him to the punch.

John turned to the door and grimly tightened his lips in a forced smile. Jacob was always struck by how little he looked like him and Joseph. The only thing that connected him were his eyes. They were the same color as their mothers. They all shared them.

"I can see why she caught your attention, brother." That was the truth. Rebecca Shaw had been… interesting. Needless to say the last time one of his Judges had attacked someone that person had had a mental breakdown and Jacob had had to give the reject trainee to John. Ms. Shaw, though initially shocked and fearful, had behaved admirably under the sudden ambush and he'd been sure she would have actually attacked the thing with that shard of glass of hers if he hadn't called it off.

Her ability to shake off the brush with death had intrigued Jacob further and he'd begun his calculation. Joseph liked to call it this. 'Calculation'. The separation of the wheat from the chaff or whatever nonsensical religious bullshit he was spewing at the time. Bottom line up front, Jacob had an ability. He could pick out weaknesses as if someone had taken a sharpie and wrote them all over their faces. It was in the way someone talked. In the way they held themselves. How they looked at someone or what they did or didn't do with their hands. It was in how they walked. The words they used. The way that they smelled. What they did when they thought no one was looking. How they reacted to pressure. Even how they handled silence. That last one was especially telling. And Jacob was particularly good at testing people with silence.

"Well I did tell you you'd understand once you met her." John traced a brush of red on the wall as he came over to Jacob. Jacob blocked the way out. His large frame had a tendency to dwarf those around him, though he did prefer sticking to the foreground, unnoticed, until the last second. It was theatrical really, but if he had to indulge in some form of it, why not the one that showcased his ability to ambush. Of course he liked to chase as well. And he liked the part at the end of the chase when the prey was cornered. He did take particular pleasure in how cornered creatures reacted. How their eyes widened when they realized they were trapped. How they started to sweat. Some trembled. Some pissed themselves. Some just looked up at him, listless and waiting for the killing blow. But then there were the ones that lashed out. There were two types of prey that lashed out. The ones that knew they were going to die, but weren't going to die without putting up a fight. Then there were the ones that were still holding on to some kind of hope. He hadn't been able to tell this morning which one Ms. Shaw was. Had she known the Judge was going to kill her and she was just lashing out to lash out? Or had she thought she could actually drive the beast off with her tiny shard of glass?

While he had been thinking this, maybe all of 8 seconds, with his eyes locked steadily on John's face as they stood a hands breath away from each other, John had been fuming. John did not do well with silence. He was impatient and impulsive. Jacob was in his way but John knew from experience not to touch him. Jacob did not move unless he wanted to. He did not speak unless he wanted to. And he certainly did not let people touch him. Jacob had seen the wheels turning as John tried to think of a way to move him from the door. He was familiar with John's tactics. John liked to talk his way out of trouble. He was good at it too. He always had the right words for every occasion and he used them now,

"She looks like mom doesn't she?" Jacob smirked. John always knew what to say. His shoulder's shrugged up and he turned his body to one side allowing some room for John to pass by. John did so and they walked side by side down the hallway, making their way to the exit together.

"Hmmm. She's bigger though. Caroline was a weak little thing." Jacob noticed the bunching of John's muscles and the way his brow furrowed out. John did not like how he talked about their mother. But what other way was there to talk about a creature like her? Their mother had had the same dark hair as Rebecca Shaw. The same nose. The same blue colored eyes under dark eyebrows. After that the resemblance ended. Shaw was not weak like their mother. John didn't remember Caroline correctly. Understandable given that the kid had only been three when she died. All he would remember was a large presence and a sickly sweet smell. Jacob though, he remembered a lot.

He remembered the drugs she would take. He remembered how her bones had stuck out towards the end. The sound her soft skin had made whenever father would beat her. He remembered how she would crouch in a man's presence or tremble if someone raised their voice. Jacob had despised her. Unfit. Weak. The brothers reached the front entrance and John roughly pulled open the door, exiting into the freezing night. Jacob followed out with him.

"Lend me a smoke." Jacob raised an eyebrow at John's tone, but pulled the pack of cigs out of his front pocket anyways. He stepped up to the porch rail where John had gone to lean up on. He was looking out over the Peggie compound which mostly consisted of freshly built white cottages and a large single room chapel, also made of fresh pines painted in a cotton color. There were large bon fires spread throughout the dirt lanes in between the houses where Faithful were gathered around talking or playing games. Very communal. Very cozy. Jacob popped one of the cigs out with a flick of his wrist and John reached over to take it out. He waved one hand, taking in the view.

"People like her don't fit in in places like this." He was talking about Shaw again. Jacob took a cigarette out for himself, placed it in between his lips and stuffed the pack back in his pocket. His golden lighter made an appearance and he flicked the flame into existence, lighting first his own and then reaching over to light John's. He flipped the cover back down, extinguishing the flame while taking a long drag while watching the Faithful mill about. He understood what John meant.

"You're saying she's not a sheep." John didn't suck in his smoke the way that Jacob did. He took long drags, yes, but he let the smoke linger in his lungs and mouth, letting it slowly curl out of his nose and the corners of his mouth.

"I'm saying she's not like them. She can't be contained." Jacob's face lit up in the red glow of the cigarette tip.

"Use your words kid. You're saying she'd be fun to break." John's smile grew grim and sinister. Oh yes. There was that Lust. The monster under the mask. Jacob had often thought that the kid should stop putting on airs. Let the monster off its leash. They'd had a brief conversation before about it. John just kept mentioning Joseph though. Joseph didn't like it. Joseph said it was a sin. And maybe it was. What the hell did he know about sin? Jacob didn't have a religious bone in his body and almost no morality to match. But the way John handled himself was sinful in the simple fact that it made him weak. It made him second guess himself constantly. Should he? Shouldn't he? He should either take the mask off altogether or he should stop being him and go full slobbering Faithful and actually eat the bullshit he spews. Actually fucking believe it, not just get his jollies off on it. The Peggies would respect him more (in a fearful way of course) and, frankly, so would Jacob. Who knew how Joseph would react. His brother was a fucking enigma in that aspect.

The Faithful were starting to notice the brothers up on the porch, gazing down on them, their eyes fearfully cutting away, intent on avoiding eye contact. What did those sheep call them again? Oh right. Heralds. The Father's Heralds. He'd heard the sheep whispering about the end of days and all of Joseph's indecipherable prophecies. Supposedly Jacob was the Soldier and his name was 'War'. His red hair was a symbol for War's red horse or some bullshit like that. John was Famine. Which made no sense whatsoever. Everyone called Jacob the insatiable one so you would think that he would be Famine and John would be War, but no. Also he didn't particular care to be called the Soldier, but he was positive John hated the title the Baptist. He knew that John liked his secret title better. The Inquisitor.

"I'm sure you found her extremely satisfying as well, Jacob. In fact, I think you enjoyed your visit today." Jacob smirked, finishing his cigarette with one final inhale and smashing it out on the snow covered porch rail. John was still only halfway through his.

"You're right, John." Jacob started his way down off the porch. He still had to make the long drive back to the Veteran's Center that night. Faith had provided him with the new batch of Bliss they'd been talking about last night and he planned on experimenting tonight under the full moon. His truck was parked in front of the cottage, unlike the rest of the Project's vehicles, painted in camo colors. A large elk was tied up in the back of the bed, its dead, listless black eyes staring up at the night sky, the pale moon reflected in them. Blood was splattered down its flanks from the deep gash in its neck where Jacob had slit it open after tracking it down through the woods those few hours after talking with Shaw. He'd shot it first. A small hole entered just below its front left flank where it had entered its rib cage, causing internal damage, but not enough to stop it from stumbling away into the deep forest. Jacob had then slowly, but methodically trailed after the prey over the next hour. It had grown weaker and weaker as the minutes progressed. At first it had made those bleating prey sounds, but then, as it began to stumble about, it grew quiet. Every time it stopped to catch its ragged breath, its sides heaving in the effort, causing more droplets of dark red blood to fall to the dirt and snow, Jacob had stopped to watch it, leaning up against a tree and staring. Every time the elk knew how close its hunter was. It even looked back once or twice, its breath clouding out of its nostrils as its ears pricked back tiredly. Its last faulty steps did not feel so pathetic to Jacob. It had lasted longer than he had expected it too. It didn't make any noises of distress as Jacob approached, slipping his rifle onto his back and drawing the long bowie knife out of his thigh sheath. He'd calmly knelt next to the elk and reached out to sooth the fur at the top of its head. It had been a surprisingly tender touch. The elk had flinched briefly as Jacob had reached out, but it didn't try to move away as he slowly pet it, making a soft humming noise in the back of his throat. The elk was staring intently up into Jacob's face and he could almost believe that the creature was gazing into his eyes. The eyes continued to stare even after Jacob reached down and dragged his knife across its throat.

Jacob tightened one of the cords down in the bed and called back to John,

"I did enjoy my time today. But there's a difference." Finished with tightening the cords on the elk, Jacob went to pull the truck door open. John stumped his finished cigarette on the same spot as his brother's,

"What's that?" Jacob's eyes were said to be unnerving. He had killed a few people over the years. More people than he was able to hold a count for. Some of them had mentioned his 'dead' eyes. He'd even had a few curse them. Not sure why only his eyes and not his whole person. Regardless he did enjoy how people flinched under his gaze. John was no exception.

"I can forget her. She's gone and, honestly, I could care less. She's just another one of these." His chin jutted out to the trussed up elk in the truck bed. John was gripping the railing with two gloved hands and was pointedly refusing to speak. Jacob grinned. He was told his grins were unnerving as well.

"Let her go, kid. Stop lusting after her or you'll drive yourself crazy." He stepped into the truck cab and gave one more parting shot.

"Play with that Fairbanks girl instead. Or how about that little thing, what's her name? Holly." The truck door slammed shut and the engine rumbled to life. Jacob rolled down his window. John was furious he could tell. His mask was cracking.

"Rebecca Shaw isn't coming back, John. Get over it before Joseph does something to make you get over it. Remember the last time you lost control." John instinctively reached up to his chest but stopped the movement in frustration, a soft growl passing between his snarled lips. Before he could make a rejoinder, Jacob was already driving off. He noticed that no one in the complex dared to look over at John and Jacob couldn't help but smirk.

Weak.


	6. Chapter 6: A Decision

**El Paso, Present Day**

Shaw returned to Falls End 3 years later. She remembered exactly when she decided this. She'd been in her tiny 1 bedroom and bath apartment eating toast at her corner table when her phone started ringing. She'd almost thrown the cell out her third story window when she saw the three digit area code for Hope County. But an intense feeling invaded her chest and stomach. Something between impending doom and irrational anger. She couldn't quite pin it down. So she answered it. Sheriff Whitehorse was on the other end.

"Mary May's in the hospital." The story that followed confirmed Shaw's premonition. A new feeling manifested while Whitehorse laid the tale out for her and that feeling was shame. Why hadn't Mary called or texted her about any of this? What kind of friend was she that she hadn't even thought to call her up when she hadn't texted her in over a month?

Supposedly Mrs. Fairbanks had passed away a year ago. Whitehorse talked about how Mr. Fairbanks had been on the war path with Eden's Gate since the funeral when his son hadn't shown. He'd begun demanding to see his son, Drew. It finally came to a head a little less than a month ago when Mary's father had driven his truck up to the Project compound and suddenly Mr. Fairbanks was dead. A car crash. His vehicle had been found at the bottom of a steep cliff with Fairbanks's mangled body inside. There'd been a short silence after this revelation and Shaw asked,

"Was it an accident?" There was silence on the other end of the phone and that was enough of an answer for her.

"What did Mary do?" Whitehorse told her how Mary had gone up to confront the Project only 2 weeks later. How she'd disappeared that evening and Whitehorse had gone up to search for her but the Peggies said she'd never showed. How two days later Mary came stumbling into his office with Will Boyd, bruised and battered and her shirt half ripped open displaying a tattoo etched into her collarbone, the word ENVY outlined in puffy red skin. John Seed had done it. Drew was dead too. Neither Will nor Mary would tell the Sheriff how he died.

The silence stretched on after the Sheriff finished telling the story. Shaw was sure that he could feel her rage pulsating from across the country. Her words were stressed as they pressed through her tight lips,

"How long has the Project been this aggressive?"

"They've always been aggressive, Becky, they've just hidden it better. This is the first time they've slipped up and done anything like this with someone who wasn't already a Peggie. The problem is Mary's not saying much. We have all the evidence, pictures, of her injuries and the tattoo but Mary's not talking outside of a single syllable sentences. I think she might need to be sent up to psychiatric out of Missoula."

"She'd never go." Sheriff made a noncommittal noise on the other end of the line,

"You aren't seeing her, Shaw. Whatever they did to her up there broke something in her." It was hard to imagine Mary May Fairbanks broken. She was a vital force, someone that drew others in, welcoming and all encompassing. The thought of it made Shaw want to break every bone in John Seed's body. Him and his brothers.

"I'm talking to the US Marshals out of Missoula as well. They say they won't make a move on the Project until their legal department reviews the case but they're already telling us that if Mary doesn't make a statement on Drew's death that there's not much of a case outside of the illegal tattooing and kidnapping, but that's a local problem according to them." Shaw could hear the rumble in the Sheriff's voice. He was angry. That was when she decided. That's when that rushing feeling from when she'd been standing in front of the family mausoleum returned. That feeling of possessiveness. How fucking dare they? That was her home.

"I'm coming back, Sheriff." Home. Was it really home? She'd been adamant on her last visit that she would never return to Hope County but here she was making a commitment. But they'd touch Mary May. They'd branded her like she was chattel. Maybe it wasn't home, but Mary was her friend.

"What does that mean, Becky?" Shaw's face was determined, her lips drawn in a firm line.

"It means I'm asking for a job, Sheriff."

"Well then Ms. Shaw. It seems we have an opening."

**break**

That all being said it was another month before Shaw was back in the County, again arriving amidst snowfall in February. Mary never did go to that psych hospital. Shaw had gotten her on the phone before moving out of El Paso and she'd gotten an earful when she brought it up to her. Shaw also got an earful about her coming back to Falls End which she hadn't expected.

"No, Becky! You got out, don't get yourself mixed up in this again." It was 2 weeks after Shaw's conversation with the Sheriff. She was on the phone with Mary as she was packing up the last of her clothes into a moving box. She didn't have a lot of things. Just some furniture and about 3 boxes of clothes and books and other minor possessions. She'd already shipped the furniture to Falls End 2 days ago. It'd get there when she arrived.

"Well, it's not really your decision now is it, Mary May?"

"What the hell are you expecting to do up here that Sheriff hasn't already tried to do?" Whitehorse had decided to make Shaw one of his Deputies. He currently only had two because one of them had up and disappeared about a week ago. No one knew what had happened to him. Shaw had done some security work in El Paso, but nothing in Law Enforcement so even though she was taking a role as Deputy when she got to Falls End, they'd be immediately sending her to Missoula City Police Academy for training starting March 1st.

"Well, for starters, I think I could start making some trouble for the Project. Random stop inspections of vehicles and stuff like that. You know how you told me about that powder that John used on you, right? Maybe I could get a sample of that and see if it has illegal drugs in it." Nothing had come of the incident back in January. John Seed had trounced the County prosecutor in court on the charges of kidnapping and decreased the founded charge of assault consummated by battery to a fine that covered emotional reparation for Mary and her medical bills for the tattoo removal, in the amount of $12,000. Essentially the court felt there wasn't enough proof to cover anything except the tattoo issue given that all they had was Mary's testimony which was faulty at best and complicated given that she refused to state what had happened to her brother. Given the hearsay the court had been hesitant to charge the Project given John's threats to charge the court with harassment. John had supposedly made a remark after ruling to Mary May along the lines that if she wanted the tattoo removed that bad, he'd be more than willing to do it for free. Pastor Jerome, who'd been escorting Mary to all the sessions, had almost punched John Seed in the court room then and there. Thankfully the Rye's, family friends of the Fairbanks who Shaw didn't really know, had traveled with them and Nick had managed to stop Jerome in time before things began to escalate. Shaw had heard this all secondhand from Mary on the phone who had started calling her in the middle of night whenever she woke up from nightmares or just couldn't sleep.

Shaw threw another jacket into the clothes box and a pair of boots,

"I could also be like a trucker body guard for the trucks bringing in y'all's booze to town. That way the Peggies get a good kick in the teeth if they try harassing them." Mary May snorted on the other end,

"Really, Becky, gonna go all Patrick Swayze 'Roadhouse' on them?" Shaw snorted right back at her,

"More like Kevin Costner 'Bodyguard'." That got a good laugh out of Mary, something that didn't happen too often nowadays. Shaw frowned. She'd tried to get the whole story of what happened to Will Boyd and her and Drew up at the Project complex. Mary wasn't talking though. All she would say was that it was her fault and she wouldn't elaborate any further.

"Mary, I'm coming back. I know you don't like it, but I let you down by not being there." Before Mary could interrupt, Shaw continued hurriedly, she'd never been good at emotional talks,

"And yeah yeah, I know, how could I have known? But, Mary, I thought I could leave Falls End behind. Turns out I still have people there I care about. And silly as it seems –" Mary waited as Shaw paused trying to get the right words out,

"I feel like I owe it to my family, the blood that's in me, to get home and fix the problems there before I really do leave it all behind." There was a long pause in which Shaw folded her last pair of jeans into the clothes box. Finally Mary answered in one word,

"Idiot."

**Hope County, Present Day**

Which brings the story to Rebecca Shaw, rookie Deputy for the Hope County Sheriff Department, sitting in a chair in Sheriff Whitehorse's office in a brand new Deputy uniform and an expansive feeling of unease in her gut. Deputy Hudson, ('Joey, everyone calls me Joey') was still staring at her from her corner. They'd met the other night when Joey and Pratt had stopped by to help her unpack her moving van into the small 1 bedroom, 1 bath apartment above the laundry mat down the main thoroughfare of Falls End. They'd been drinking at the Spread Eagle and had seen her unfamiliar truck rolling down the road and had come to check out the new resident. They'd talked a bit and Shaw had offered a night cap, which they gladly accepted. Supposedly hers was the only whiskey in town. Mary May's shipments had been increasingly sporadic since January and hard liquor was getting harder to come by.

Once they left, Shaw had shoved her mattress onto the bed box spring that had already been put together by the movers and immediately collapsed into a deep sleep. She'd been driving for over 17 hours and it was the only thing she cared to do. She'd woken up around 1030 the next day to Joey Hudson banging on her door. The next few hours had been a whirlwind of activity, signing paperwork, getting her certificates in, issuing out LE gear, changing into her new uniform, and finally meeting with the Sheriff.

"Not that you won't be helpful, Shaw, but I would have liked it more if Missoula had also approved the additions to our deputy slots. Three deputies, a crusty old Sheriff, and a 52 year old secretary just's not going to cut it with these Peggies." Shaw could really only nod to this. She was still running half empty given the amount of driving she had done the day before. Sheriff placed his hat on the side of his desk and sighed heavily. A large map behind him showed the whole of Hope County, land marks and all, with red pins indicating Project locations and land. There was a lot of red. Eden's Gate had not let up buying properties or buildings while Shaw had been away. She noticed the roughly drawn statue just at the north end of the Henbane River Valley border.

Shaw had been dumbfounded the other night when she exited out of the tunnel into the Henbane and saw, standing starkly on a hill overlooking both Holland Valley and the Henbane, the largest, most godawful statue lit up by flood lights and the moon. She'd almost crashed the van in a fit of rage when she realized it was a statue of fucking Joseph, still under construction but very clearly him. When the hell had that gone up? Now in the day, Shaw could see on the map around the statue there was a trail marked out in the hills leading up to it labeled 'The Path.' Whatever the fuck that was.

John had also completed his 'YES' sign, the one she'd seen him building on her last visit. In order to make up for rudely awaking her that morning, Hudson had brought her a large cup of steaming coffee. She even guessed right that she liked her coffee with only a small dollop of milk in it, no sugar, which had prompted Shaw to give a very grouchy thank you that Joey had accepted with a bright smile. When Shaw had walked outside with Hudson she almost spilled her coffee down the front of her shirt when she finally got to see the large white 'YES' sign standing vigil in the distance, completely discernible from even so far away. Shaw had glared up for a few seconds, drawing an understanding look from Hudson, but eventually she could only murmur 'Fucking Peggies' under her breath and Hudson had lead the way to the station just down the street. The 'YES' sign was also on the map. So to was the new Peggie complex which they had moved out of the mountains and onto a sizeable bit of land right in the middle of the county, which was essentially an island unto itself. They'd moved just recently, within the last month after the incident with Mary May. They still housed people up in the old Project though.

On the wall, the county was divided up into three large sections, notably the Henbane, Holland Valley, and the Whitetails. There were four large folders pinned to the wall beside the map, marked as Joseph, Jacob, John, and Faith. Under the Faith file folder were three other file folders also with the name Faith but with numerical numbers to the side of it, indicating the different girls who had taken on the role.

Shaw had always thought that to be the most unsettling aspect of the Seed Family. The fact that they changed out there Faiths. No one knew exactly what happened to the previous incarnations but there were rumors. Rumors about the drug Bliss and rumors about how much the Faiths looked like Joseph's dead wife.

Shaw stood up and went over to the folders and pulled open the one on the newest Faith, searching through the contents until she got to a picture. This one was young, much like the rest had been. Shaw had only ever seen one of them, the one that had been around when her mother was still alive, the first one. She had traveled from Georgia with Joseph and his brothers. No one had known her from before she was Faith. This new one had a little bit more blond in her hair and her nose was flatter, almost like a button. She wore a white dress that was more lace than the others had been. Her eyes didn't seem as glassy either. Shaw could swear she knew this Faith. It took only a few seconds of looking into her hazel green eyes to work it out,

"Shit is that Jessop's girl? What's her name? The one who use to hang out with Tracey and smoke pot outside the gym. They were freshman when I was a senior, before they closed the high school." Sheriff's face turned even grimmer and he nodded,

"Rachel." Shaw wanted to crumble up the picture and rip it to shreds. She hadn't really known Rachel. Just knew her by face and reputation. But she'd been a small thing, like a little fairy, flitting about the hallways.

"When?" Hudson spoke up, twiddling with the handcuff keys on her belt,

"Bout two years ago. She'd been in and out of her parent's house, whenever she went back to doing drugs they'd kick her out. Joseph just showed up one day to the clinic when she was checking herself in and he swept her up an away. Offered her something better than cocaine I guess." Sheriff added on,

"The Jessop's tried to say he abducted her, but she's 24 and she told me personally that she was in a better place. Can't do anything if the little chit doesn't want us to help." Whitehorse stood up from his chair and took the picture out of her hands, placing it back in the folder.

"Mark Russell's putting up a fuss about his little sister Linny. Can't help him either. He didn't have the best words for us on his last visit. So he's trying to get some investigative bloggers or something or another out here to do a PSA on the Project. We'll see if anything comes of that. Doesn't matter one spit though, this fucking cult should sell whatever brainwashing juice they're using because not a single Peggie wants out or anything to do with us or their families." Shaw's fist balled up and she tersely asked,

"So what are we going to do about it?" Sheriff took Shaw by the shoulder and steered her away from the wall.

"Well first I'm sending you to the Academy so I can actually put you to work." Shaw growled in annoyance.

"Missoula Academy takes over a month and a half to graduate from. Can't you just give me local certifications and get me started now? I've heard about the missing people, Sheriff. We need to put a stop to it." Whitehorse frowned,

"Oh I could just get you started Becky, but then you'd get yourself shot and I'd have the state breathing down my neck about why I sent an uncertified trainee onto the road. Then I'd get fired and Hope County would end up without a Sheriff, or worse, with someone that Joseph could corrupt and just make matters worse. We do it right, Becky, or we don't do it at all. Hudson's going with you too. State caught on to the fact that I was doing exactly what you were suggesting with her and now I'll be short two deputies while you two fulfill this bureaucratical bullshit licensing." As Sheriff pushed her and Deputy Hudson out of his office he mumbled under his breath along the lines of 'how fucking hard is it to pull a goddamned trigger and read someone their Miranda Rights.'

"Hudson, get her in the system and start prepping her travel voucher. You both leave out at the end of the week. I'll see you two back here the first week of April. Don't fucking fail."

And that was that. Shaw had just enough time to visit Mary May before leaving out. She looked different. Not in her appearance. It'd probably be more accurate to say that Mary felt different. Sadder. Angrier. It felt like, if given an excuse, Mary would take her shotgun from behind her counter and walk into Eden's Gate and murder as many people as she could. But even more disturbing was the feeling that Mary would be capable of turning that same shotgun on herself.

"It'll be alright, Mary. Everything is going to be okay." Mary had just looked at her solemnly and cautioned,

"Don't make promises you can't keep, Becky." And that was that. Saturday morning, Joey Hudson and Rebecca Shaw hopped into one of the Hope PD trucks with their bags and enough junk food to last the 4 hour trip to Missoula and they spent the next few weeks in a big city attending a police academy, unawares of the shit storm that was about to drag them kicking and screaming into a whirlwind of trouble back home.


	7. Chapter 7: Storm on the Horizon

**Missoula, MO**

Given the turmoil and general discontent of Falls End and the surrounding area of their home town, Shaw and Hudson had gone a long time without a grace period. In Missoula, away from the Project, amongst other young cadets, men and women of their own age, they could almost relax. They could laugh and drink and hang out. Yeah there was studying and training and field exercises and lots and lots of legal education, but overall it was a time to cool off and forget about the important shit for a few weeks.

Around the second week is when Joey began asking Shaw about her childhood. They'd been having a social at one of the downtown bars with the rest of the class and they'd managed to seclude themselves in a corner booth away from a lot of the noise and general tomfoolery of the drunken cadets. This was a two way conversation of course. After Shaw had given a short version of her time as a kid, omitting a lot of the stuff with her father and focusing more on her mother, she'd delved into Hudson's past. Joey had been raised in the Whitetails. Her mother was Mexican and her father was an old codger from South Dakota who'd cut ties with his family on the Lakota rez and decided to move out further West to Montana. Given how short Hudson's own conversations were about her parents Shaw made the accurate assumption that Joey's parents hadn't been the best guardians either. Didn't matter to either of them too much. Both their parents were dead.

They talked well into the night, long past when the rest of the group had left to go dancing and all the way up to last call, bottles of beer filling the table space in front of them. They talked about the Seeds. About their friends back home. Hunting (Hudson's father had also taught young Joey how to shoot and track), fishing. Stupid shit too. Who was her celebrity crush in middle school? What was their favorite food? Who had the best Sheriff Whitehorse impersonation? Did Pratt have the hots for Hudson? (that earned Shaw a not so quite soft smack on the shoulder from her companion). They talked about death. About love. It wasn't until a few days later that Shaw realized that she had a friend in Joey Hudson. Shaw didn't have a lot of friends. It took another week to realize that she had a lover too.

It just happened. They shared a hotel room with two double beds. Mostly cause Hope County PD could only afford one hotel room. There were already two dead wine bottles in the kitchenette sink and they were lying down on the same bed with another Moscato in between them, talking about the future. The two were more beer people but they had been joking about having a girl's night for the last two days and today had been the OC and Tazer certification day and they thought that a super soft girls night with mega pampering was needed to soothe their aches. They'd even painted their nails, this god awful bright pink ("that's fucking 80's neon work out pink, Becky") and had gone out to buy these plastic toy fans (the ones that have candy in the bottom for the kids and stupid looking cartoon characters on top). Shaw had gotten one of the yellow minion fans ("Boi's got a DICK!" Shaw had shouted down the street, lofting her minion fan high in the air as it spinned about at the waist, before Joey could playfully jump on her back and hold her hand over Becky's offensive mouth, her own Ariel Disney fan going full force). Now they lay on the bed, sharing a third bottle of moscato, holding their little fans up to their red rimmed eyes to calm the OC irritated tissue.

"I haven't really thought about it. You know." Shaw stared at her in disbelief.

"What do you mean you haven't thought about sex, Joey! It's sex! Everyone thinks about sex! Pratt certainly thinks about it, the way he looks at you!" Hudson flipped Shaw the middle finger and counter argued,

"Shit girl, what about those asexual types then? For all you know I could be asexual and you're misidentifying me or some shit."

"What?" Hudson got up onto one elbow, sloshing the white wine in its bottle. She waved her fan in her free hand,

"You know, asexuals. They're like peeps who don't experience sexual attraction." Shaw also got up on one elbow,

"Wait you sayin you're an asexual?" Hudson shoved Shaw,

"No, you ass, I'm just saying I haven't had time to think about sex and all that. There's the whole Peggie shit for starters. Not to mention I know everyone in town." Shaw made a face and nodded in agreement,

"Yeah that's a downer but hey, you don't know me and I lived there longer than you." Hudson hadn't moved to Hope County with her parents until she was 14 and the first time the two had ever met or seen each other was 3 weeks ago in Falls End. Hudson hadn't started working at the Sheriff's office until after Shaw's father died and by then Shaw as no longer living in Hope County.

"True but you don't count." Shaw frowned,

"Whaddya mean?" They were both incredibly drunk by now and Shaw had noticed that Hudson was a very huggy person when she got a few drinks in. Even now Hudson was lying on her side next to Rebecca and one hand was under Shaw's neck wrapped around her shoulder and one foot with bright pink toe nails was pressed gently into Shaw's calf muscle. Hudson was really warm, like a hot water bottle, which was fine because late March in Montana was still cold as shit.

Shaw had had to get use to how familiar Hudson could be. Conversely, Hudson had noticed how particular Shaw was about being touched so she'd slowly started to incorporate appropriate touching. She would ask if she could hug Shaw. Given it was still snowing in town when the cadet group went out drinking, Hudson would sidle up to Shaw and if she noticed her shivering would offer to walk with Shaw in the crook of her arms ("We can share heat"). She had begun to use high fives that transitioned into back pats that eventually turned into squeezes of her biceps and hands in warm congratulations. Shaw had grown to appreciate her gentleness and her slow progression.

Suddenly Shaw felt a hunger. She hadn't noticed that Hudson was staring at her, her fan turned off by a flick of her finger and flung casually to the foot of the bed. Hudson had beautiful eyes even if they were blood shot and rimmed in red from the OC spray. Hazel with touches of green flecks about the pupils. Her dark hair was in a rare unsecured hair style, ie not up in a bun or braided down her back. It framed around her face and smelled of black currants. They were both in pjs, which for Shaw consisted of a large olive green tshirt with holes in it and underwear, and for Hudson meant red boy briefs and a white tank top. She hadn't realized how close they were together on the bed. Shaw swallowed nervously and a red blush creeped up her neck and into her cheeks. Hudson smiled mischeviously,

"What do I mean? Oh Shaw. I think you're downright special." With that Hudson leaned in the very short distance and planted her soft lips right on Shaw's, her hand, holding the neck of the wine bottle, reaching over Shaw's waist and pushing gently on the small of her back, inexhaustibly guiding Shaw's hips around and into her own. One tanned leg snaked up Shaw's bare thigh also helping to drag their bodies together.

Shaw could taste her. The fruity sweetness of the wine and the rougher musk that was what Shaw had imagined she also tasted like. Hudson's smell enveloped her just as her body did and the heat seeped into her skin, setting something on fire. It was like fireworks and the overwhelming sound of the ocean surf. Shaw's fan fell from her fingers and her arms tentatively wrapped around Hudson's waist as Joey made encouraging sounds. Suddenly Shaw was pulling Hudson closer, wrapping her legs around Hudson's thighs. Shaw didn't want soft and slow now, her tongue broke through Hudson's lips and entered the warmth of her mouth. Hudson made a muffled surprised yelp, accidentally spilling a good portion of the wine on Shaw's back. Hudson broke contact at the lips, trying to say sorry, but Rebecca wasn't having it, she wasn't going to wait. If she did she'd lose this momentum and try to back off and that was the last thing that Shaw wanted.

So instead Shaw reached behind her, grabbed the bottle from Hudson's hand and quickly placed it on the bedside table on Hudson's side, having to reach over her body to do so, essentially putting Shaw on top of Hudson. Shaw was the bigger girl. She had 2 inches on Joey and a bit more muscle to boot, a little bit more fat too but who cared, Shaw had never felt as sexy as she did now, straddling Joey in-between her legs, her hands holding Hudson down on her biceps and her gaze fixated on Hudson's puffy lips, long neck, and the hard outline of her nipples through her tank as her chest heaved up and down.

"Rebecca." Shaw started and looked up into Joey's eyes. Shaw let go of one bicep and reached her hand up to cup Hudson's cheek, tracing her defined cheekbones up to her temple with her thumb. Joey tilted her head until her lips were in the palm of Shaw's hand and she kissed there before continuing, Shaw's thumb now tracing her lips as she spoke,

"Don't regret this." Shaw nodded, bending her head down closer to Hudson's, her long hair cutting their faces off from the room and it was just them, looking into each other's eyes, their warm breath intermingling together, Shaw's lips brushing softly against Joey's,

"Joey. How could I regret this?" The kiss was planted, easy and slow and then it was hard and needy, and their bodies were pushing together as if trying to sink into each other. That need drove them long into the night and for those blissful few hours, it was only them.

It wasn't awkward waking up next to Hudson the next morning. During the early morning hours they had fallen asleep in each other's arms. Hudson had started as the little spoon, mostly due to Shaw's size, but it seems that in deep sleep they had transitioned against each other. Shaw woke up curled into Hudson's body, her head resting on Joey's naked stomach as it gently rose and fell from her breathing. One of Joey's hands was curled in Shaw's hair and the other arm was up above her own head. As always Hudson was giving off intense heat. Shaw remembered last night and though she had a slight headache from the amount of wine they had consumed she felt more satisfied than anything else. She wanted to pass that feeling on. So she gradually pushed herself up off the mattress, letting Hudson's hand fall from her head (at which point Joey made a murmur and Shaw paused, letting her quiet down). After the brief pause in which time Joey settled, Shaw positioned herself in-between Joey's legs and, gently taking her hips in her hands, proceeded to wake Hudson up with her methodic attention to that warm spot in-between her legs. Thank god they had that Saturday off. They only left bed to briefly freshen up in the shower together and then grab some Gatorade and ibuprofen and Shaw's practice handcuffs.

The next two weeks were some of the best times of Shaw's life. School was mostly class work now with the previous three weeks of ranges, certifications, and field training out of the way. They almost always got out around 3 and after that they had the rest of the day to themselves. Shaw and Hudson made the best of it. By the time two weeks had passed they knew pretty much every nook and cranny of Missoula. They even started taking art classes together, something that had started as a bit of a joke, but just like with 'girl's night' ended up being something special that they could do together.

But all good things come to an end. Their good thing ended when one of their fellow cadets asked about the youtube video.

"Is it a hoax?" They'd just finished up a study session for the upcoming exam week when Harrison had come over with his cell in hand. Hudson had been whispering to Shaw about a thing she read online, something to do with whipped cream and chocolate sauce, when Harrison had interrupted. Needless to say she wasn't exactly thrilled by that,

"What are you talking about, Robert?" Robert held out his phone which was already loaded to a video that only had about a 100 views so far,

"I follow these guys who do 'investigative' journaling into shit that local LEOs can't close cases on, either cause they're corrupt or the criminals are working within the law. The guy, Alex, he's from my home town. He just uploaded this about 15 minutes ago. Didn't know if this was a joke or something. You are from Hope County right? If it's a joke it's not fucking funny." Shaw hadn't noticed how good the last five weeks had really been, more specifically the last two with Joey. The crushing since of trepidation and the disquiet feeling she had constantly experienced since finding out about Mary May's run in with the Project was abruptly back with a vengeance. It was like someone had walked into her brain, pulled a small chalk board from behind their back and proceeded to scrap their nails down the front. Shaw could tell that Hudson was feeling the same way because her shoulders tense and the moment of hesitation before she reached out a hand to take the phone. Whatever was on that video was going to put an end to their grace period.

And it was bad. The moment they saw the Seed brothers they grew abnormally quiet. Enough so that a few of the other cadets gathered behind them to watch as well, sensing their agitation. It was a 17 minute long video, roughly cut. It started with three vloggers, Alex, Hannah, and Sara, driving along a road that Hudson and Shaw both knew by sight. Then they were meeting up with Mark Russell.

"He actually got them to come in," Hudson breathed out, shaking her head slowly,

"Idiot." Mark talked about his sister Linny and about the Project. Shaw noticed Mary in the background at the Spread Eagle and Hudson pointed out Nick Rye, who Shaw had never met but had heard of. Then the scene switched to a car and the guy Alex prepping a hidden camera as they prepared to attend one of the Project's sermons. The moment that Rebecca and Joey saw the Seed brothers, Jacob and John, and Joseph Seed appeared with outspread hands and a serene face, that sense of the security that Shaw and Hudson had built over the past two weeks imploded. They quietly glanced at each other, both feeling as if they knew what was going to happen but they let the video play out, unconsciously grabbing hands under the table.

It was the proof they had needed. At the cost of four people.

This was actual video evidence of the Peggies kidnapping and drugging people with the Bliss, brainwashing them into submission. The video was exactly what was needed to prove that the 'Faithful' were nothing but puppets, controlled by a substance that took away their free will. There was visual evidence of the Peggies collecting caches of illegal weapons. Fuck, Jacob Seed could be seen shooting at the four escapees, Alex's rough breathing as he spoke his last words on the video, Hannah's alarmed voice calling out his name, the gun shots cracking loud through the woods. The last bit of video was Jacob Seed and a few of the Project Faithful approaching towards them out of the forest, his hooded eyes glinting in the setting sun and the grim line of his smirk with the knowledge that he was hunting and he'd soon have his prey. Shaw shuddered at that look.

 _If you are watching this then you already know what's happening. Eden's Gate is here. Hope County, Montana. They're real. I don't know what they're trying – what they're trying to do. They're taking people. They have Hannah, they have Sara. I'm not sure what's going to happen to us. Please, please do not forget about us. Don't forget about them. Come – come. Stop them. Please._

That was it. The group of cadets were completely silent for a few seconds, all of them staring either at the blank screen or at Shaw and Hudson. They'd of course heard the stories about the cult from them. Heard their suspicions about the Project and the Bliss. Some of them had shrugged it off as an overblown hyperbole meant to gain sympathy or one up other county PD problems, others had said that cults were everywhere in Montana, they all had their fair share of fanatics with guns. But either the video was a hoax or Shaw and Hudson's stories were real. Joey's eyes narrowed in concentration and her jaw line twitched. She handed the phone back to Robert,

"We need to send this to the Sheriff. You said it just got loaded?" There was the time stamp, 42 minutes ago. The view count was now at 2,314.

"Maybe it just happened. Maybe Sheriff and Pratt can do something." Shaw didn't say anything but she didn't have to. Like the rest of Montana, Hope County was geographically the same. Woods and mountains. She'd noticed the lake and the log camp, just like Joey had, but there were about 22 locations in the Henbane alone, not including those in the Whitetail Mountains that had temporary and permanent logging camps. Judging by the mountain location in the background as they'd been being hunted in the woods Shaw could guess that they were in the Whitetails and given that the kid Alex had been filming even after being forcibly taken they knew that it was close to McGregor's cabin and the abandoned Chapel up there, but that narrowed it down to a 12 mile radius location and there was no way in hell that Sheriff Whitehorse and Pratt were going to make it there by night fall from Falls End let alone be able to search that area with just the two of them. They tried anyways.

They couldn't get the Sheriff on his cell, they kept getting automated messages of cell service being out, but they finally got him on the office landline. He hadn't been tracking the video being posted but he had known that the three vloggers and Mark Russell had been missing since the afternoon before, having gone up into the Whitetails and last being seen at Teller's Ranch at one of the Peggie sermons. Mark had even called them just before the video went up online, but the message had been so garbled that they hadn't been able to get a location, just that the four missing persons were going to try and get to the Veteran's Center. They'd heard gun shots on the line before it went dead. They tried to find them. Four days and two warrants later and still no one could. John Seed released a press statement that Sunday stating that the video was a hoax made in an attempt to defame the Project's reputation. When the authorities insisted that the Seeds attend a hearing, the Project had gone radio silent. That was on Wednesday.

Shaw and Hudson finished there last exam that same Wednesday, earlier than expected, but given the circumstances, the Academy instructors had accelerated their testing and graduated them early so they could get back to Hope County. They left that Thursday morning and when they got in to Falls End at 2 in the afternoon there was already a US Marshal in the office talking with the Sheriff.

Shaw and Hudson had been told to get there as soon as they arrived in town and now they sat in the waiting room in chairs in front of Nancy's desk. Pratt was with them and they were quietly talking to each other, mostly about what Pratt knew about the missing persons and the abnormally quiet Peggies. Nancy even tremulously stated as she offered a batch of cookies to each of them to chew on,

"I've been hearing the rumors around town. The Father has been prophesizing the end times nearing and has been gathering all the Faithful together." Hudson rolled her eyes heavily and took one of the larger cookies out of the tub Nancy held out to her,

"Oh, Nancy, Joseph Seed has always been prophesizing about the end times. Nothing's changed except they finally got caught bullshitting." Nancy had gone to sit down in her padded chair with the bead covers that older folk liked so much. She clipped the tubberware top on with shaky hands,

"No, Joey, dear. Something's different. Can't you feel it?" Pratt stood leaning up against one of the many file cabinets behind Nancy's desk and polished off the two cookies he had taken. He didn't seem overly concerned. Either that or he was trying to hide his nervousness with some fresh bravado,

"Ms. Nancy, everything will be fine. I won't let those Seed boys bother you." Hudson and Shaw rolled their eyes at each other. Joey took a large bit out of her cookie and made a face,

"Man, I thought these were chocolate chip, Nancy! Raisin cookies!? The source of all my trust issues."

"I'd advise against that, Marshal." Sheriff's sudden words caused the four of them to look down the hall at the now opened door to his office. He was leaning out and beckoning the three Deputies to come. Shaw and Hudson had stopped briefly to change into their deputy uniforms because Pratt had made a last minute text that a US Marshal was in the office and that'd they'd best look sharp. It was a miracle that they'd gotten the text at all. The past week had been filled with dropped calls and cell phone disruption. They'd changed at Hudson's place, a nice little one story house about 5 minutes driving distance outside of Falls End, before heading in. Pratt had even opened up the armsroom and issued out their side arms and gear. At the same time he'd gifted Shaw her own shiny new badge ('Welcome to the force, probie.')

Shaw, Hudson and Pratt made their way down the hall and into the Sheriff's office, closing the door behind them. The US Marshal was not a tall man. He was maybe 5 foot 6, but he was built like a pit bull. Large chest, only made larger from the stance he held as he stood beside the Sheriff's desk dressed in slacks and a white buttoned shirt with sleeves rolled up to his elbows and his collar unbuttoned showing off a few whisps of chest hair and a cross necklace. His tattooed arms were crossed and he glared under hooded brows at the three junior deputies as they came to stand around the briefing table with its large map of Hope County. His badge hung at the front of his belt and he had one of those shoulder holsters that allowed his weapon to hang just under his left arm pit for an easy draw. Shaw noticed he carried a Smith and Wesson.

Sheriff sighed and leaned over the table, his beefy hands placed squarely on top of the map. He indicated the Marshal with a nod in his general direction,

"This is US Marshal Cameron Burke, everyone." The three of them nodded to Marshal Burke and Pratt made a little wiggle with his fingers. The Marshal glowered and interrupted,

"I'm here to clean up this mess." Burke's tone of voice was enough to get Pratt to stop smiling and to cause Hudson to narrow her eyes in his direction. It almost sounded like the Marshal was accusing them of letting the Peggies get out of hand.

"You let this cult get out of hand, so we're going to pluck Joseph Seed out of his compound and give him some justice long overdue." Oh yeah. Burke was not making friends fast. Shaw looked between Hudson and Pratt and then at Whitehorse who had maintained a bland facial expression but now warned Hudson off by raising his hand. Hudson had been about to talk back but she locked her mouth shut and settled for a glare.

"As I said before, Marshal. I'd advise against that. Pratt, why don't you give him a run down of the Peggie compound." Burke's expression had turned sour but Pratt didn't give him time to make any comments and immediately launched into his briefing. He indicated with one finger the island that the Project occupied currently. It was smack in the middle of the county map,

"The Project has a solid base of operations. Only one hard ball in –" His finger traced the one road leading to the island. He also pulled out from a folder at the corner of the table some satellite photos that showed closer blown up images of the island.

"As you can see they funded and built their own wall. Note the barricades at the entrance to the bridge and the triple barbed wired fence line that surrounds the road and the island itself. So no go on water landings because if the beach isn't closed off by the fence it's patrolled by Peggies with dogs. Obviously John Seed spared no expense on Joseph's island getaway." Burke seemed to be interested because he wasn't making any attempts to hijack the conversation and he was slowly saddling up to the table to take a closer look at the images. Pratt plopped down three more photos.

"This is the compound itself, note the roaming patrols and the secondary fence line, also triple placed. The Peggies live in these cabins –" Pratt pointed at the smaller white cabins and then rested his finger on the chapel,

"This is where they conduct services every night. Joseph seems to have words to spare because he never misses one of these. And frankly it's the only time we ever know exactly where he's going to be." Burke smirked,

"You don't know where he sleeps at night?" Pratt shrugged,

"According to the Peggies he doesn't sleep." Burke made to rebuke Pratt, but the young man waved off the tirade with a smirk of his own,

"Obviously I don't believe that. We think he moves between his siblings. Sometimes he stays the night with Jacob up at the Veteran's Center, sometimes at John's ranch –" Shaw's eyebrows shot way up and she leaned in close to Hudson as Pratt continued, murmuring,

"He has a fucking ranch?" Hudson nodded, waving her off at the same time so she could pay attention.

"- other times he sleeps at Peggie houses outside of the compound. He likes to make personal visits. So no. We don't really know where he sleeps at night. Did I miss anything, Sheriff?" Sheriff Whitehorse nodded,

"How many people at a time, give or take, reside in this compound?" Hudson answered for Pratt,

"Between 100-150, sir. And that number isn't counting anybody but those able-bodied. The Project has kids, elderly, and disabled but they keep them out of the compound." Burke was leaning over the map and pictures quietly accessing the layout and numbers, Whitehorse decided to wrap things up,

"So in summary, Marshal, while yes, I would love to serve Joseph Seed and arrest his crazed ass, unless you either have a company of National Guard incoming or have a plan to deal with up to 150 fanatics that will not be happy to have their Father taken away from them and also a valid exfil plan that won't put us at risk of ambush, well then, I'd like to hear it. Because, to remind you. My office comprises of those people in this room." It was a harrowing thought. Despite how much Shaw detested the Seeds, she would certainly hesitate going in with just herself, Pratt, Hudson, the Sheriff, and one US Marshal. Burke didn't seemed worried though which was odd given how worrisome his next statement was,

"Don't you guys have a helicopter?"

The next hour of deliberation was something for the ages. Shaw didn't think she'd ever see Sheriff Whitehorse's face turn that particular shade of mauve. And frankly the dick measuring was astounding. Hudson and Shaw had to reel in Pratt a couple of times, especially when he started catching some of the Marshal's fever,

"Maybe the plan could work, Sheriff. I mean it's a quick fly in, grab, and fly out. I'll drive, y'all can flex your muscles and bring the sucker out in chains. We hit them at night, we know he's going to be there and they won't be suspecting a thing. I mean, no offense, but maybe the fact that the plan is crazy will be the reason why it'll work. No one will be expecting us." Hudson even put her two cents in obviously not in favor,

"Your mouth is moving and words are coming out, Pratt, maybe you should see to that." Pratt shot Hudson a dirty look but Joey kept talking,

"Sheriff's right. The plan's half-assed. We need more people. Why the hell did the Governor only send you?" She jerked her hand towards the Marshal, expecting an answer and getting one. Burke heatedly argued,

"Because one Marshal is all you need. It's a simple arrest, you don't need the Guard to come in for this and even if you did you wouldn't get them, all the Montana Guards and Reserves are ramping up for deployment. We'd have to wait an additional two weeks for support from Wyoming or Idaho and by that time the Seeds could make a run for it." Sheriff Whitehorse had grown quiet during deliberations, his tired eyes behind his tinted aviators were focused on the far wall with the other county map with all the Peggie locations in red and the four folders which now had pictures of each of the Seeds on the fronts. Joseph Seed gazed at them from across the room, presiding over their deliberations, his stare unwavering from behind his own see through aviators. Whitehorse's voice was equally tired when he finally spoke out over the arguments,

"What do you think, Shaw?" Shaw looked up in confusion and the Sheriff continued,

"You're the only one who doesn't seem to have an opinion. Given it appears to be a two way tie, maybe you'd like to break it?" Suddenly all eyes were on Shaw. What the hell? Why would he ask her something like this? Shaw didn't speak for a second and it looked like Burke was going to try and speak over her, so she cut him off,

"I think –" Again all eyes were on her. There were a few folders on the map table. Shaw had been perusing them as the four had been having their heated conversation. One of those folders was opened up in front of her now. It was the case report on Mary May's injuries received in January. There were also hundreds of open cases of missing persons and allegations of kidnappings from concerned family and friends. Coercion cases were also prevalent. Shaw slid a photo from under a stack of excel sheets. This one showed the three vloggers; Alex, Hannah, and Sara; sitting at a bar smiling together. Shaw traced the lines of those faces,

"I think the Seed boys have gotten out of hand. Have we even found these guys?" Shaw looked up into Sheriff Whitehorse's eyes who was looking at her wearily and shaking his head. Her voice was firm and final,

"Well then. We need to find them. The longer we wait the more chance there is of the Project getting rid of them. And only Joseph Seed knows where they are. Someone needs to stop him from doing something worse than what's already been done. We're the only help there is." It was quiet for a moment, Sheriff was rubbing the bridge of his nose in resignation. Then Burke smiled. It was a bit disconcerting to behold.

"Even the Rookie knows what to do, Sheriff. Then it's settled isn't it? Tomorrow night."


	8. Chapter 8: Seeing Death

John sat on a stool in front of a young man bound to a chair with rope at the waist, wrists, and ankles. This young man wore no clothes which exposed his bruised and reddened skin with bloody gashes and odd brands that had been burned into the flesh and the lines of chapped and frayed skin where he was bound.

"Alex, look at me." Alex flinched at the soft cadence of John's voice, but he knew better than to disobey after three days of being with the youngest Seed brother at his ranch. He slowly and painfully lifted his chin from his chest. His beard had grown ragged over his short captivity, his eyes had even sunken in a bit and were rimmed in dark bruising from both sleep deprivation and actual bruising. He had a split lip that was seeping fresh blood and a large red swelling just below his right eye. One of his ears was bleeding. John smiled as he looked into Alex's face. It was a tender smile. As if he were looking at something beautiful.

At his ranch, John still dressed for the occasion. That evening he wore a silk purple shirt over fitted dark dress pants. His dark loafers were made of the finest leather, not a scuff on them. The sleeves of his shirt were rolled all the way up his biceps, revealing his tattoos and the flecks of blood that glistened in little droplets and splashes on his forearms. His beard had grown in over the last three years, professionally maintained. His smiled widened into a grin, white teeth flashing, as he reached out to grab the back of Alex's neck, pulling his face in closer to his own.

This kid and his friends. They'd really kicked the hornet's nest. After juggling the media, the court summons, and the local Sheriff for two days after Alex released the footage and then finally having Joseph tell him to cut off contact, John had found it necessary to let off some steam. And since his siblings weren't sharing the girls with him, John had been more than happy to invite Alex into his humble abode. John had been playing with him since.

Alex was instantly tense in John's grasp and his eyes were locked onto John's. They still held a little spark of defiance in them. John had been slowly working to douse that light. He was so close to breaking this one. He could smell it on the kid. But it'd be another few days at least. He was impressed by his resiliency. Almost three days of, if not constant torture, at least intermittent and creative, Alex still had some fight in him. The first day John had hung him by his arms from the wall like a decoration. Both of his shoulders had had to be popped back into place when they finally brought him down. Alex had been covered in so much sweat that his clothes had been drenched and he'd been barely breathing towards the end. John hadn't asked him any questions that day and slowly Alex's bravado had faded into whimpers and labored pleas to take him down. John, himself, finally did. He had laid Alex softly on the ground of the large common room and had placed his head in his lap, stroking the shaking man's hair and even helping him to drink some water.

The second day John had tied him down to a table, removing his soiled shirt, and brought out a brand. It was a simple brand. A circle outlined in another circle with a concave line at the top. It looked like a little bull. He had then started asking Alex about his sins. For the better part of the morning, Alex held strong. He cursed and spat and swore. He demanded the return of his friends. He had called John many a bad word and vowed to do all manners of unspeakable things to him when he was free. But towards the end, when John switched from a branding iron to a long knife with a thin edge, those curses and swears turned to screams and truths. John got a lot of truths that day. A lot of confessions. How Alex felt responsible. He brought that up more than once. Alex seemed to have a cross between imposter syndrome and hyper guilt. He was the one that had convinced his friends to come. He was the one that failed to save them. John had heard him out well into the night and when Alex couldn't speak anymore John thanked him and slowly began to apply ointment to the burns. Alex remained quiet throughout.

That morning, John got a surprise when he went to Alex's cell, an actual cell in the basement of the house. Alex was waiting for him. Usually John would have to drag him from the room, fighting the whole way. This time though Alex was quiet. John opened the cell and walked in just as Alex told him he wanted to confess. John was slightly shocked because he had been sure that Alex would last a bit longer. He was shocked enough that he let his guard down. And Alex tried to take advantage. Which John handled quickly. He'd punished the wayward boy by filling a trough with ice and water and stripping him naked before wrestling Alex in it, locking the lid on the trough shut. Alex's screams had echoed and only faded when John closed the basement door behind him. He left the boy there for almost 2 hours before he finally dragged his blue and shivering body out of it. It had taken him almost another 2 hours to recover. And now Alex was tied to the chair and John's hands were about his neck.

"You said you wanted to confess, Alex." John's voice was soft but his hands were not. They were slowly choking. Each second his grip getting tighter. Alex's face was growing a dark shade and his breath became gasping and ragged.

"I will cleanse you and when I am done you will be freed." He released his grip and Alex drew in a loud intake of air and began coughing. He glared up at John as the coughs subsided and he choked,

"When I'm free I'm going to fucking rip your heart out and eat it!" John couldn't help but laugh. Alex glared up at him. Oh my, he was angry. Alex's glare widened a bit and his gaze shifted behind him. John's eyebrow raised an inch. There's only two people who would enter his residence without permission and who could do so without his sentries announcing them to him. Jacob or Joseph. Jacob's voice was answer enough.

"This one seems to be a bit more lively than the one I have." John turned around and smiled through his teeth. He didn't particularly want Jacob there, but if he was here he was here for a reason.

"Good evening, brother." Jacob nodded and leaned up against the large brick fire place that took up the middle of the common room. Alex began to strain against his bonds in agitation,

"What do you mean 'the one' that you have?" The back of John's hand connected with Alex's mouth and another split erupted forth in blood. He grabbed a rag and proceeded to gag the man who growled obscenities into the fabric.

"I didn't say you could speak, Alex." After tying off the knot, John ruffled Alex's hair with one hand,

"There. Keep quiet now and wait for me. Jacob and I need to talk. Would you like a drink, brother?"

"No. You'll have put your fun on hold here, John." John smirked as he walked across the rug covered wooden floor to the bar on the other side of the expansive room. Far enough away that Alex would not be able to hear them. Jacob followed behind him slowly after eying Alex who was still glaring at them furiously over his gag. John poured himself a glass of whiskey and suddenly noticed that he had spots of blood all over his hands. He reached for a rag as well and began to wipe the red stains off, one finger at a time.

"Joseph wants us." John sighed, threw the now soiled rag back behind the bar, and finished his drink in one swig.

"He told us to stay low."

"He had a vision." John poured himself another shot.

"Did he now? And what do you think of this premonition, Jacob?" Jacob had chosen to wear casual clothes that evening. Casual for him anyways. Instead of camo he wore sturdy jeans tucked into a pair of scuffed black boots and a red and black checkered flannel shirt. He looked as if he'd come in from a day of mudding as the cuffs of his jeans and boots were splattered in dry mud and dust. He also smelled of diesel fuel. Despite appearing casual he still had his ever present bowie knife strapped to his thigh and a Krueger pistol in a holster at his hip. Also it had been a while since he had worn his dog tags, the ones that also had a rabbits foot strung on the chain. John had never gotten a straight answer out of Jacob about that rodent appendage. Did he really have superstitions? That didn't fit into John's understanding of his eldest brother. It was probably just a souvenir. Given his attire he'd more than likely been on his atv up in the mountains. Jacob did that sometimes. Depending on the day and the fact that he wasn't dressed to hunt, he was either checking up on his conclaves up in the hills where he conducted experiments on animals and humans or at a range somewhere shooting. Jacob's heavy eyebrows rose indifferently as he answered John with a shrug, one scarred hand reaching up to brush through his recently cut hair.

"You know what I think about his 'premonitions'. Doesn't matter though. It's a bit coincidental that the same day Joseph has a vision is the same evening that I get a message about a planned raid for tomorrow night on the compound." John almost choked on his drink. There was a new light in his eyes. Different from how he looked when torturing Alex, less excited and more maniacal.

"Tell me the Sheriff is going to take the initiative this time? Did they get any National Guard in? Imagine it, tanks and Humvees. A chance to try out those AT-4s or Claymores." Jacob rubbed the bridge of his nose, hiding a smirk,

"It'd take a little more than an AT-4 to take out an Abrams but a Claymore would probably do it. And no. My source says they only have one US Marshal, 3 deputies and the old man himself." John frowned.

"Really?" Jacob shrugged again,

"I'm sure he was hoping on the element of surprise. Him or the Marshal. They were going to fly in. Smash and grab." Jacob seemed unimpressed with the overall plan that the local PD had come up with. He continued on.

"They can't rely on the volunteer SWAT, not after what happened a year ago with the Bliss Factory raid." Again, Jacob's source had forewarned the Project of a raid on one of their Bliss farms and labs. What Sheriff Whitehorse had not known at the time was that 2 personnel on their five member SWAT team had already been initiated into Eden's Gate. On Jacob's orders they had blown up the empty lab with all five of them in there. The local PD had reported it as an accident, a gas leak or something, but the Sheriff had made it clear to the Seeds that he knew what they had done. He just couldn't prove it.

"Well things have been picking up momentum, maybe Joseph's just channeling that overall feeling." John stated, screwing the top back on to the whiskey bottle. He looked over at Alex across the room, naked and gagged and already struggling against his bonds, making loud grunting noises.

"Let me have my guys put young Alex up for the night and I'll grab my coat." Jacob stared ominously at the clock behind the bar and then back at his kid brother.

"Make it quick."

An hour later John and Jacob were entering the chapel at the Project compound. It was almost midnight and the sky was lit brightly by an almost full moon staring down at them. All the campfires were extinguished and the only lights were those along the fence line that lit the ground beneath them and revealed the sentries as they entered and exited underneath. Most of the compound was asleep. John opened the large chapel door and let Jacob pass through the arches before him. John followed behind and shut the doors softly, turning to take in the small open room with high vaulted ceiling and its rough wooden pews and planked walls slathered in handwritten psalms and verses.

The altar on the dais was the only source of light at the back of the church besides the moonlight that filtered through the windows. The two LED smart tv screens John had installed for presentations to the Faithful were turned off, two silent dark sentries flanking the altar. Candles covered the top of the roughly hewn table top surrounding the rose wood book stand with the original copy of Joseph's book, bound in white leather and stamped with the Project's cross. It was the one that Joseph inscribed his thoughts and words into. Over the years the Project Faithful had taken to treating the object as a holy artifact. John had found this incongruent with what he knew of the book itself. His brother's wife had gifted it to Joseph two years before her untimely death. A leather bound book of blank papers waiting for his thoughts and ideas. When Joseph had found him he'd already drawn and scribbled in over half the pages. Nonsensical words and prophecies. Scratched lines that formed into faces of demons and angels. And then there was their history. Joseph had let him read it. Things he had not known of his family became facts. The book was less of a relic prophesizing the end times for him than it was a stark and painful reminder of the tainted and tragic blood that flowed in his and his brothers' veins. Of course, it was Jacob's book, so more often than not it was on his person, but when it wasn't it was in this reliquary or, as became customary since the creation of his statue a few months ago, in the room at the top of the statue. How apropos, given that the top was Joseph's own head. Art imitates life. Or so John had always been told by the elite in Atlanta who had tripped over themselves to attend to John and his gross wealth and affluence.

As John and Jacob made their way down the aisle, their footfalls echoing in the confined space, a small figure emerged from a dark corner to come position herself lightly at the bottom step of the dais, her fair hair and hazel eyes gleaming in the soft candlelight. Faith had arrived, possibly before them. This was John's favorite Faith.

As he had predicted the Faith from three years before had passed away not even a year ago. When she had finally disappeared, her eyes had been pure milky white, almost like pearl. She had started muttering and making soft screeches, her movements turning jerky and disconnected, until, one day, she was gone. And then this new one took over. The youngest of all the Faith's before. And possibly the most merciless. Certainly, the most devoted to Joseph. This one had been on and off with the Project for some time now. It was only recently that the previous Faith had begun to have the young Rachel follow on her skirt tails, take part in the Bliss experiments. It was Rachel though that had stepped up brutality of those experiments. Joseph had wanted complacency from his followers. Rachel, through her application processes and innovations on the new chemical formula over the last two years, had given the Father obedience. Mindlessness. John had found this new Faith's rise to power peculiar. And the sudden disappearance of the previous Faith had been abnormally abrupt. They'd still yet to find the body and it'd been over half a year now. John was sure the newest Faith had everything to do with it. That and the sudden stories of screaming up in the mines. The screams supposedly weren't human. John had even heard the word zombie whispered amongst some of the Faithful. This was relatively new information and John hadn't been able to confirm anything, but it did endear this new Faith to him immensely. That and the new and improved Bliss that she was giving to him and Jacob.

That evening she wore a new dress. This one was made of white lace, a floral pattern with a skirt of tattered ends that was short enough to expose a good portion of her pale thighs. Someone had woven flowers into the lining at the waist and down one inseam along the thigh. It was a modest top but overall the dress accentuated the woman's young age and belied an innocence about her that John knew to be false. Faith was not innocent. Neither in her past life, nor in the present. But her flaws only made her more perfect for Eden's Gate.

"Brothers." John and Jacob nodded to her. This Faith deserved a modicum of respect that the others had not. Absentmindedly, John wondered what had become of the girl, Sara. Alex had been asking and maybe if John heard the story from Faith he might be able to tantalize the young Alex with it. And then break him with true knowledge. For no doubt did he have that Faith hadn't already "opened her eyes to the Father's truth." Such a euphemism. No one who saw the truth ever saw much again. John walked right up to the smaller woman and smiled down into her pleasant features,

"Where's Joseph?"

"I'm here, John." Joseph entered the room from the back of the altar, behind the stand that held a large iron Project cross welded to the top of a long wooden pole. He stood in a pool of moonlight that filtered from one of the large windows interspersed at intervals along the chapel. His features were stark in the pale light and alternatively lit softly by the flames from the candles. It was a contrast that played across his face in a manner that concealed more than showed. His features as always were guarded, placating, his face somewhere lost between congeniality and evanescence. It portrayed an intelligence, but a foreign and detached one that struck uncertainty in the soul of others.

Jacob took a seat on the nearest pew, his legs spreading out before him and his arms slung across the tops of the backs. He had a small smile playing across his lips as he looked up at his younger brother, his own face thrown in contrast by the two different light sources, though his features exhibiting a more brutal cut and shadows that hid his eyes. Joseph was wearing a plain button up white dress shirt with a black priest's collar. He wore a tailored jacket over this with designs upon the shoulders and dark jeans with stenciled dark leather boots peeking out at the bottom of the leg cuffs. His beard was recently trimmed. With one hand on the altar table top and the other at his side, he was gently caressing each individual bead of the rosary wrapped around his wrist and dangling from his fingers. John stepped up to his brother and received a hug from him before stepping back to take his place at the bottom of the steps again.

"Joseph. You called." Joseph nodded and came to stand by Faith, placing one hand on her shoulder. Faith looked up, her eyes paying rapt attention to his, the obvious worship she felt exhuding from her stare. He smiled down at her solemnly and continued.

"The Collapse is here. The Reaping will begin soon." Those words alone brought a new light into John's eyes. They'd been preparing for the Reaping for over 10 years now. Gathering weapons, training, indoctrinating. The Reaping was to be a release. A time of preparation. A time for Joseph's Heralds and their followers to let loose the dogs of war and subjugate Hope County. To save as many souls as possible. And well ... if those souls refused to be saved. Then though souls would cease to exist. There was only room for the Faithful in Eden. A sadistic smile curled on his lips. He had to make sure that they weren't turning in their cards too early though,

"How do you know, Joseph? We've had this happen before. If this is because of Alex and his friends –" Joseph cut him off,

"It is not them that I have seen." Joseph let go of Faith's shoulder and walked past John on his right and Jacob on his left, down the aisle, stopping halfway, this time completely shrouded in moonlight.

"I have seen Death." The three Heralds stiffened. Jacob slowly stood from the pew in the silence and turned to Joseph.

"Death?" Joseph turned back to them at the question. Seeing their taunt stances and the wary stares, he held up his hands, palms out in placation.

"The visions are difficult to explain, Jacob." He walked up to the eldest and grasped his biceps, looking slightly up into Jacob's dark blue eyes.

"Death is a woman." That startled a laugh out of Jacob.

"Isn't it always?" Joseph did not join in his mirth but continued on in a voice that was half-aware. It was like he was lost in a dream and telling them from far off what he was hearing in this dream. His eyes focused on John first as he held Jacob's arms still,

"You fly John. And your sin brings you crashing down, struck by that which you could not tame. If you wish to see Eden you must learn to let go." John's body went cold and he felt a weight in his chest. Joseph's eyes then lit on Faith who did not seem as worried as his brothers. She looked up as he directed his words towards her.

"You are not alone, Faith, but you feel thus. Lost in Bliss. You will seek fulfillment and strive to capture it and in the end it will be denied. It will feel inevitable. But your path has only ever been to serve. Remember this." Faith took this without too much change in her stance or features. Her eyes did harden though and if a look could pierce flesh hers would have in that moment. Joseph then returned his attention to Jacob in his arms. Jacob had stayed perfectly still the whole time his brother had been speaking. He did not react to his statements nor did he look away from his face. Now Joseph spoke to him,

"I know you do not see what I do, Jacob. You don't need to see to be there for me. Your faith is the purest for it is soley for me and no one else. I saw you on a mountain. I saw you with Death." Jacob's smile returned. Quiet and considering.

"You saw me with Death? Did you see my Death Joseph?" Joseph released Jacob's grip.

"I did not. I saw Death. Does that mean death for us?" He contemplated his words as his Heralds watched attentively,

"I pray not. But we do not decide our paths. They are chosen for us." Jacob nodded and looked over at John who, though he attempted not to show it, seemed perturbed. Joseph looked up at the roof, as if seeing through it to the night sky above.

"Tomorrow. We must prepare for their arrival here. I saw her here." Faith asked softly,

"Her?"

"Yes. I saw Death."


	9. Chapter 9: The Warrant

_Fall's End – 5:42 pm_

Shaw tightened the straps down on her concealed body armor, first the left rib strap and then the right, her gloved hands pressing in one side along the contour of her ribcage and then the other. She shrugged her shoulders, rolling her arms around to see if the fit was set. The right shoulder felt a little loose, so she reached up to rip off the velcro strap and reattach, but another hand was there to help her. Joey pushed gently into her back shoulder blade from behind her, pulling in the armor tight before finessing the strap into place just over her breast. Hudson leaned her head around from the back and placed a kiss behind Shaw's ear, breathing lightly down her jawline,

"How is that, Rook?" Shaw couldn't help but smile at the nickname and she turned into Hudson, grabbing the loops at the top of her own body armor and tugging to see that they were tight.

"Peachy. You got your shotgun, boss." Hudson responded with a grin and one pointed finger at the locker bench where the Browning 500 leaned up against the metal door near where her forest green Deputy top was strewn. 2 boxes of rounds were also on the bench and an LE belt where a pistol holster, baton, handcuff pouch, and extra mag carriers were strapped. Her face turned serious though and she grabbed up Shaw's hands in her own, holding them up to her chest before releasing one hand to grab her chin and force Shaw to look down into her eyes. They stood there for a second, in each other's arms, foreheads pressed together, and gazes locked. Joey finally breathed,

"We'll be fine, Rebecca… You'll be fine." Pratt took that opportunity to barge into the locker room, shirt off and trying to snap his belt holders in place on his belt,

"Yo, chica, need some hel –" Pratt looked up from his arduous task and suddenly back peddled a bit on finding the two women in each other's arms, holding up his hands in some form of apology before backing back out the door stuttering, not even realizing he dropped half the belt holders while doing so,

"My bad, my bad." The door slammed shut in his face and Shaw couldn't help but roll her eyes. Hudson nuzzled the nook between her neck and shoulder,

"Well there's the cat out of the bag. Tomorrow's going to be fun, wait and see. He'll be asking so many damned questions." Shaw shook her head, her lopsided smile disappearing,

"Tomorrow? I think the next few hours will be _fun_ enough."

"Yes, yes, but just think. After all of this is done we can finally sleep." Shaw leaned in for a long, lingering kiss,

"I don't believe there'll be much sleeping."

"Excellent."

 _Project at Eden's Gate – 6 pm_

Joseph stared out over the dark, rippling water, humming under his breath. The compound to his back was alive with the sound of the Faithful mingling and making preparations and the flickering lights of bonfires and the sounds of dogs fighting, and someone was cooking meat. They, of course, did not know what was to come. The Father had made the decision to only tell his Heralds. As God had whispered to him. _I Am. And_ _I will not let them take you._ So why must his children fret?

Of course, that hadn't stopped the rumors that had spread upon the arrival of not one, not two, but all three of the Heralds that evening. The Faithful were not stupid. There was a palpable sense of impending doom that hung like a pall over the island. Joseph had attempted to assuage the Faithful by walking amongst them.

"Children, be calm. Who am I?" _Father._

"And what does a Father do?" _Protects. Saves. Defends. Loves._ The answers had varied from cabin to cabin and fire to fire. But his walk had done good for them. But then Joseph felt the all-encompassing and urgent need to be alone. _Father, where are you going? Stay with us._

"My soul is overwhelmed, children. Stay here and be watchful. Watch and pray." He had left them then and gone through the gates and to the water's edge, beyond where anyone could see him. Anyone except God, who was always with him.

Joseph sat down on a dried, bleached log that had washed up on shore some time ago. Rocks clattered beneath his feet, shifting underfoot. He bent over to pick one up, the stone round and smooth, dark grey with striations of lighter gray throughout. He slowly began to rub the surface with his right thumb as he gazed off over the large lake with a view of the dark Whitetail Mountains beyond. Tiny pinpricks of light were scattered, far and few, across the mountainsides.

She had always told him to understand his feelings. His wife. His beautiful love. Joseph touched the tattoo on his right inner forearm lightly with his free hand, fingers tracing the lines there as he continued to gaze out over the water. The moon was full and it reflected off of the lake surface causing a cascade of flickering as the small waves lapped onto the rocky shore. He bent his head and closed his eyes. Then slowly he began to breath in and out with the waves, matching the cadence until the intense emotions he felt became background noise to his breath. With this focus he was able to turn his attentions back to his emotions without being overwhelmed.

His forehead wrinkled into lines of shock as he realized that he was disconsolate. The sorrow was penetrating. In fact, he was in agony. Why? Joseph's deep, blue eyes opened and looked up to the heavens. The wind picked up and whispered to him. _Be not afraid._ But how could he not be? The visions from the night before had been terrible. He had seen death before, of course. Hundreds of thousands of millions of deaths. All at the hands of those complacent few who had gained power not deserved. He had seen them. Their flesh peeling from their bones and the tears in the eyes of children. He had seen the world burn.

The premonitions that had woken him from his sleep yesterday had been less catastrophic but no less horrifying. This time it had been his family. Those he held dearest. And Death had not come in the form of fire and ash. It had come as a Being. A woman. He had seen her stand behind each of his siblings. He could only remember her eyes. How she had stared at him, indifferent, unflinching, from behind each of their shoulders. Until one by one they disappeared. And then she stood before him and held out a hand, drenched in blood. Not just drenched. Overflowing. A red fountain sprung forth from her hand and into a cup. A chalice that she held out to him. _Take and drink. You are my own. Your ransom is my blood._

"The spirit is willing, but the body is weak." Joseph breathed this softly to himself as he sat alone remembering. In his vision he had frozen before her, his hands held limply down by his sides, his lips stammering out a plea. _If it is possible may this cup be taken from me. Yet not as I will, but as He wills._ He had then been thrown down as if from a great height, the woman flying away above him and he had then crashed into a sea of blood. It sucked him down beneath the surface and he choked on the salty, iron taste as it entered his mouth and soaked into his skin, drowning him. As he felt darkness begin to engulf him he heard a voice thunder down into his very soul, _COME AND SEE._ A burning hand had then grasped his flailing arm, scorching the flesh before dragging him from the surf and he had then found himself on a desolate island. He crawled on the ashy ground on all fours, blood dripping off him as he gasped and tried to get his breath back and then he had looked up. And there before him, standing on the skulls and bones of humanity with a colossal mushroom cloud rising up in the background, superimposed on a red sky, was a spectral white horse, desolate in its features and radiating malice. It bent its neck down and took in a long drag of air, the sound of it causing Joseph's bones to tremble as he stayed frozen. And then it had snorted and took a few cantering steps back allowing Joseph to see Death approach him again. Her eyes had filled his vision, unveiling a swirling mass of Hell and agony in her gaze, as she held out the cup once more. _If it is not possible for this cup to be taken away unless I drink it, may His Will be done._ And with that he had reached out to accept and then woken in his bed.

Now here he sat in sorrow. He had not wanted to take the cup. He had never wanted any of this. Not the visions. Not the voices. Not the death of his sweet Delilah. Joseph looked back down at the rock in his hand. The smooth, cool surface. There were flaws there. But there was also perfection. How it felt just right in his fingers. No he had not asked for this. But he had been chosen. So he would do what he must. A soft rustle behind him alerted him to someone else's presence. He could smell her. She smelled like summer in the field. Faith came to sit down beside him.

The first time he had seen Rachel Jessop had been over 7 years before. She had been only 17. Even then she'd been lost. Now she was 24. He had once called her child, but now he called her Faith. She was a hard Faith. Quick to action and all consuming. With the Collapse now imminent he was glad to have this Faith and not those that had come before her. She would not break. She had bound herself to him so thoroughly that she no longer cared to remember a time before him. Faith placed her hand in his, encircling the small river rock that he held in his palm.

"Is your heart troubled, Father?" Joseph smiled sadly and took his left hand, cupping the side of her face as she peered up at him, her hazel eyes softening.

"No, my Faith. Not anymore." Faith leaned into the Father's cool palm and closed her eyes, letting a deep hum start in her throat.

"That is good." They stayed that way for a long moment. And Joseph could not help but remember another moment just like this, so very long ago. One with Delilah but instead of holding her hand he had had it placed upon her belly, swollen outward, their daughter within. God has His reasons. And we all have a purpose. Joseph had to believe this. He would never stop believing this. He bent his head down and brushed his lips against Faith's, breathing in her sweet and husky scent, one of his fingers tracing her cheekbone lightly. After a long, chaste kiss, he pulled back and declared,

"Tonight it begins. Let's go and attend to the Faithful. I feel the hour draws near." Faith nodded, her lips flushed.

"Yes, Joseph." They stood and Joseph paused a moment and reached up to gently grasp Faith's chin, forcing her to look up. A sudden compulsion came over him and he spoke frankly, his words somehow maintaining the ethereal feel despite the warning behind them.

"Remember what I said last night, my dear Faith." A spark of fear lit the back of Faith's eyes as she looked, not daring to blink, into his. He leaned his face down closer to hers, his gaze filling her own, dominating it,

"You are meant to serve. We cannot fail. Our children will suffer if we do – " He kissed her softly again and Faith struggled not to flinch. Joseph pulled back and finished, his breath enveloping her,

"Faith cannot fail." With those final words, Joseph led his Faith back to the compound, the chapel rising up before them. Waiting.

 _Fall's End – 6:22 pm_

Sheriff Whitehorse let out a rumble of a sigh and grabbed up the pack of cigarettes from the corner of his desk and looked in it. Two left. And the store wouldn't be open until tomorrow. And he knew he was going to need a whole nother pack before the night was out. His nerves were not having it and he could already feel the parched, dry itch at the back of his throat that accompanied thoughts of consuming hard liquor. Whitehorse's brows furrowed and he drug one hand through his thinning hair. His stomach had been in turmoil all day, an ulcer brewing, and he couldn't help but blame it on stress even though he knew the real reason was from over consumption of aspirin over the years, something he had chewed like Smarties for the better part of his adult life.

This was a mistake. He looked over at the map laid out on the conference table in his office. They had gone over the plan multiple times already. They'd be approaching northeast out of the Henbane, using the hilly terrain as coverage, in an effort to minimize the cult's time to react. Whitehorse just couldn't shake the feeling that they already knew they were coming. He glanced up and saw Joseph Seed's penetrating glare looking back at him from his picture tacked up on the wall. The Sheriff grumbled under his breath and popped one of the cigs out. He stuffed it between his lips and snatched the lighter off a bookshelf. Lighting the cigarette, he took a long drag as he walked up to the map and file folders on the wall with the Seed Family photos all in a line. He then blew out a large plume of smoke into Joseph Seed's face. Maybe it wasn't the best idea. But the Rookie had been right about one thing. They were the only help there was.

He patted his chest ensuring the tight fit of the secondhand vest under his shirt and he checked his belt, making sure all his gear was set up in the right place. Finally, stubbing his already finished cigarette into the chintzy ash tray Nancy had bought him from the F.A.N.G Center, he unholstered his pistol and ensured a full mag was in the magazine well and, pulling the slide back, made sure a round was loaded into the chamber. He flipped the switch on the side taking the weapon off safe and placed the pistol back in the holster.

Whitehorse took a deep breath, looked around the office one more time, and then left, grabbing up his hat off the stand as he went out his door. He walked down the hall and came to a stop at Nancy's desk. Nancy was a 52 year old with arthritis in her hands and a penchant for wearing the color pale pink. Earl Whitehorse had known Nancy for over 10 years now. She'd lost her husband around the same time and had been determined to get a job, something she hadn't had for over 25 years. Earl, of course, was not one to say no to a woman in need. They'd been working together since. She could raise hell with the best of them, but tonight she looked as pale as he'd ever seen her. She looked up from her computer, the dyed auburn curls of her hair bouncing with the movement and her dark brown eyes widening in concern,

"Have you changed your mind, Sheriff?" Whitehorse came to stand by her and placed one hand on her shoulder,

"Now, Nancy. Everything is going to be just fine. You'll see." Nancy shook her head, her lip quivering a bit as she busily began to type on her keyboard, a memo plastered on the screen,

"Everyone keeps telling me that. Deputy Hudson, Staci. I'll be expecting young Ms. Shaw to be saying it too. So don't blow air up my ass, Earl. Everything does not feel right and I really don't want you to go." Those last words were punctuated by the fierce pounding keystrokes under her fingertips and then she abruptly shifted in her chair to look up directly at Earl.

"Please change your mind." The way she said it. Earl scrutinized her closely and his grip tightened a bit on her pale pink cashmere jacket, but before he could speak someone slapped him none-too-lightly on his back. Marshal Burke came out from around him and braced both arms on the front of Nancy's desk. He was dressed in his raiding gear, with his body armor over top a dark long sleeve shirt with sleeves rolled up to his elbows and tucked into a dark LE belt. Tattoos stood out on his forearms and he wore black tactical gloves. He looked between the two of them and countered facetiously,

"Ma'am, there's nothing to change our minds about. We have a job. We're going to do that job, aren't we Sheriff?" Earl released Nancy's shoulder and slowly pulled his aviators from his pocket, placing them on the bridge of his nose as he glared over the desktop at the Marshal,

"Seems cooler minds aren't going to prevail tonight, Marshal. Can't wait to see how this turns out." Just then the three junior deputies walked out of the locker room annex. They'd been talking loudly together but stopped when they saw the Marshal and Sheriff standing off. After a hesitant moment, Staci broke into a congenial smile holding up his rifle and a burrito in the other hand, it was enough to distract Whitehorse from his rising anger,

"Pratt, what the hell?"

"What it's just a burrito? A man's got to eat you know." Sheriff raised an eyebrow and glanced at Hudson who was shaking her head,

"Don't look at me, Sheriff. I couldn't even stomach lunch let alone pre raid snacks." The tension had seeped out of the room somewhat and Whitehorse took the opportunity,

"Well it's a good a time as any. Sun's about down." The three deputies looked up expectantly and the Sheriff nodded,

"Get the chopper running, Pratt. The rest of you –" He glanced over at the Marshal to include him in the conversation,

"Lock and load. Let's go get Joseph Seed."

 _32 minutes later – Over the Henbane_

"We're officially in Peggie country." Shaw twitched at Joey's words and the continuous loud thrumming of the helicopter blades above the passenger cabin. Joseph Seed's grandiose statue rose up to the left. God it was an eyesore. And at the same time struck fear into her bones. She shrugged her shoulders before putting her phone away in her back pocket. She really did hate the lack of service out here. It made her feel trapped not being able to call out or get access to the internet. Since her and Joey had gotten back, it had gotten even worse. Pratt had had some conspiracy theory about John Seed grabbing up all the cell phone towers in the area. All three of them. And that slowly, but surely, the cult was shutting off the county's ability to contact the outside world. It's not like there was a Verizon or Xfinity out here in the back woods of Montana.

Shaw ignored the back and forth exchange between the Sheriff and the Marshal. They'd been at it all night. Personally, she thought Burke was a colossal prick, the arrogance just oozing out of him whenever he dinged to speak. But she had to thank him for getting the party started so to say. Honestly, she couldn't have been sure the Sheriff would have gone after the Seeds if Marshal Burke hadn't shown up with his neatly printed and official looking federal warrant. But she also knew Whitehorse's concerns. Shaw couldn't shake the apprehension that had plagued her since coming back to this place. And tonight… with the pale moon staring balefully down on them and the shadows elongated on the landscape that rolled away beneath them as they soared through the air. God it felt like she was falling. As if the world were swallowing her whole. The emotions were roiling inside her and –

Shaw took a deep breath. No. She was in control. No one, but her alone, could get into her head. She was the master of her thoughts. The mantras that had been taught to her and Joey in a mental coaching class the Academy had made them sit through only 4 weeks ago came to her. That and the breathing exercises. This was normal. They were pre-raid 'jitters'. Every rookie got them. Breath in, breath out. She was her own worst enemy. Breath in, breath out. What happens, happens. Breath in, breath out. The only thing to do now was to clear her head of distractions. Difficult when Pratt's voice interrupts her inner chant,

"Maybe we should have brought Nancy along instead of the Probie. These Peggies wouldn't fuck with her." Shaw made a face and looked up in time to see Joey lightly slap his thigh,

"Pratt." Her voice was warning enough, but Pratt just smiled and looked back out through the windshield. Shaw felt there had been something between them once. She and Joey really hadn't had enough time to get to know each other too well. There'd been some history exchanged but 5 weeks wasn't so long as to make conversation on past exploits any less uncomfortable. Shaw looked at the back of Hudson's head. Her dark braid falling down and around her shoulder. Pratt took out a canteen and took a swig. He held it out to Joey and she playfully nudged it away, her eyes rolling. Shaw almost smiled.

"- they're looking for a fight."

"Are you scared, Sheriff?" Shaw's eyes snapped back to the two men having a conversation across from her. She hadn't seen that look in Whitehorse's eyes for some time. His face was completely neutral, but Shaw remembered from one particular night when her father had drunk so much that he'd stripped naked and picked a fight with her in their front yard. It had been right before her mother died. Shaw had knocked him out cold on the front lawn just as Earl Whitehorse had driven up. He'd had a neutral look on his face then too, when he had walked up to stand beside Shaw, looking down at his old friend, Michael. But his eyes. The emotion there had been of deep and profound disgust. It was the same exact look that the Sheriff was giving Marshal Burke now. Thankfully Pratt interrupted before the Sheriff could start something,

"We're here. Compound's just below." Shaw took her eyes off the Sheriff and the Marshal and craned her neck to see outside. Shit. Pratt verbally mirrored her inner thoughts.

"Oh my Jesus." They could all see what she was seeing and what she was seeing was too many Peggies. 100-150 doesn't sound like a lot when you say it. But in person. It was a fucking lot of people.

"This is a bad idea." Joey's anxious words were cut off as the Sheriff tried to reason with the Marshal one last time as they flew in over the chapel and the cabins and fire pits and the scattered Peggies now staring up at them.

"Last chance, Marshal." Shaw gripped the edge of the bench tightly as Burke let out a long sigh.

"We're going in." Shaw glanced up and caught Hudson's eyes. Their fear stared back at each other. And no mantra in the world was going to get rid of it.

\- _John Seed_

From his dark corner behind one of the mounted TVs, John looked up at the ceiling with the gilded cages hanging down as they swung side to side, the chapel walls shaking with the passing of a helicopter overhead. He couldn't help but smile, his lips curling upward as he thought of what was to come. It was all so … climatic. John took a deep breath in as the congregation's voices rose in song. Amazing Grace. An old, tired tune. But one that Joseph favored.

He glanced over at his brother now. Joseph had torn his shirt off in a fervor, not even 30 minutes ago as he had begun preaching to his sheep. His sermon had been exceptionally passionate that evening. His voice had hit almost every note and pitch that a human voice could hit. His erratic pacing had snuffed out a few of the candles at his booted feet in passing. He'd been expounding upon the Book of Revelation. Not surprising in and of itself. John tended to let his mind wander when his brother found himself in the throes of pontification. He liked to scan the herd before Joseph. See if maybe someone in the crowd wasn't as caught up in his brother's mysticism. Tonight though… he could feel the strum of palpable tension in the very air. Something that did not normally affect him, but on this night, almost consumed him. He could touch his brother's words. How they filled the single room chapel.

Jacob had come too. John could feel him standing even further back in the corner behind him. Jacob's stillness was in total contrast to Joseph's motion. How was the man not affected by this? Didn't he feel the intoxication? The feeling of a great wave rising up above them, ready to crash down at any moment? John smirked. He'd forgive his eldest brother's stoicism tonight. They'd all soon have their fill. What was it Jacob would call it? Their purpose? Yes. They'd soon realize their purpose. Even with the rising voices of the choir, John could hear the landing of the helicopter outside. Soon.

\- _Rebecca Shaw, The Deputy_

The chapel doors rose up above them and Shaw stopped, her hand hovering near her pistol in its holster and her breath shallow and rapid. The short walk from helicopter to the chapel had unnerved her. She bet she looked scared. The Sheriff stopped the Marshal from pulling open the doors, placing one hand roughly on the chipped, whitewashed surfaced, preventing the action,

"Woah, Marshal. Now we do this, we do it my way. Quietly –" Burke took his hand off the door handle and held out his arms, palms up in exasperation,

"- Calmly. You got it?" Whitehorse made a face at Burke until he grumbled,

"Fine." The two men looked back behind them, scanning the gathering Faithful. None of them happy to see the local law. The Sheriff's eyes narrowed behind his aviators as he heard their angry murmuring and saw their hands tighten on their weapons,

"Hudson, on the door. Watch our backs. Don't let any of these people get in." Joey nodded, hoisting her shotgun up as she glared down some Peggies behind Shaw. Shaw jerked her head up when Sheriff mentioned her,

"Rookie. On me." Shaw nodded, trying to control her breathing. The jitters were coming full force and for some reason this meant her hands were now extremely cold. She had a sudden irrational fear that she wouldn't be able to draw her weapon, let alone pull the trigger. Whitehorse's calm, gravelly voice intruded on her momentary panic. He was now looking at Marshal Burke, his own expression exasperated as he drawled out sardonically,

"And you… just try not to do anything stupid." Hudson glanced back at the Sheriff in momentary shocked approval before returning to scan behind them, her eyebrows raising slightly as her gaze briefly locked with Shaw's. Burke made a face that swiftly transitioned into patronization as he let go of his grip on his holstered pistol to pat the Sheriff's shoulder condescendingly,

"Relax, Sheriff. You're about to get your name in the paper." Again, Whitehorse's neutral face belied the disdain in his hooded glare, glinting under the brim of his hat as he turned to the doors. Hudson took a second to catch Shaw's eyes and for a moment, a brief moment, the fear gave way to softness. A tiny bit of warmth filled Shaw's extremities upon their eyes connecting and she felt a fleeting moment of calm as Hudson murmured for her alone,

"You'll be fine." And then the Sheriff opened the creaking, chapel doors, the light from the cross shaped window at the end of the hall illuminating a tall, shadowed figure, and Joseph Seed's voice called out,

"Something is coming."

\- _Joseph Seed_

The words flooded from his lips, spilling forth like the water from the rock in the desert.

"You can feel it, can't you?" The chapel doors had been flung open and three figures had entered under the arch, a cool wind blowing in from behind them causing the flames to flutter in the gutters of the candles at his feet. The Faithful in their pews turned to witness the approaching intruders.

"That we are creeping toward the edge… and there will be a reckoning." Joseph composed himself and made to lift his hands up in inclusion as the three shadowed figures began their slow stalk down the parted aisles and the congregation.

"That's why we started The Project. Because we know what happens next." He let down his hands. He could now see the Sheriff's features as he entered the light. An old man with a tired face.

"They will come." His voice echoed off the vaulted ceiling as the prideful Marshal glanced at the Sheriff incredulously. Joseph's eyes narrowed. Such a small man,

"They will try to take from us. Take our guns. Take our freedom…." As they came closer he could begin to make out each of them; the Sheriff with his morose eyes, the Marshal with his disdainful smirk… and the young woman behind them. She was familiar to him. Someone from a memory. Something in the pit of his stomach stirred and he added on quietly,

"… Take our Faith." The young deputy had been glancing back and forth nervously between the two sides of the church packed with its Faithful. Joseph felt a well of anger rise up in him as he saw each of the interlopers with their hands close to their firearms. Their intent clear in their approach and their hard gazes. He let the anger seep into his voice,

"But we will not let them!" The Marshal said something to the Sheriff who told him to hold on. Always so cautious, Whitehorse.

"We will not let their greed, or their immorality, or their depravity hurt us anymore!" The outrage and frustration of his long years in service to the Lord welled up inside of Joseph, fueled by the visions of thousands of lost souls and millennia of suffering. He directed this into his words, his searing gaze traveling between the two law men. How can they not see!?

"There will be no more suffering!" The Sheriff was raising his hands up to calm the reckless Marshal, but that would not stop the petulant rage from erupting out of him. Joseph could feel this. Much as he felt the years of his prophecy, the weight of his own suffering, coming down on him. It felt like a wave, a tidal wave, reaching up above him, ready to crash down and render him into pulverized nothingness. The moment was almost here. His whole entire being felt it.

"No fuck this!" The Marshal jabbed his arm outward, holding up a paper warrant to Joseph, who spared the warrant no glance and instead studied the Marshal's own face as the man continued,

"Joseph Seed! I have a warrant issued for your arrest on the suspicion of kidnapping with the intent to harm!" Joseph felt the shift of emotions in the crowd of his followers. The shift was not unlike the changing of the tide. They had picked up on their Father's rage and had begun to internalize it. With the Marshal's words their expressions had turned hard and their grips on their weapons had tightened. They began to move forward. The brave fools.

"Now I want you to step forward and keep your hands where I can see 'em." The Marshal lowered the warrant and transferred it to his other hand, fully aware of the growing tension among the crowd as his draw hand wavered over his holstered pistol. Joseph almost smiled. Such a foolish man. He raised his arms up, palms to the roof, indicating the trio of outsiders. Both the Sheriff and the young Deputy looked anxious as the Faithful began to speak out, _Go back to where you came from! Get out of here!_ ,

"Here they are… the Locusts in our garden… You see they've come for me." The Faithful began to grumble and they started to move forward, gathering before him. He also felt his siblings, John and Jacob edging forward out of the shadows, prepared to come to his aid even though he had been quite explicit in his instructions for them to be seen and not to act,

"They've come to take me away from you. They've come to destroy all that we built." His voice rose steadily above the outcries of the group as they aggressively placed themselves before him. Faith emerged from her own corner of the Church, her eyes on her Father. But Joseph only had eyes for those who would try to take him. Oh how they scrabbled. Oblivious to what he knew. Only concerned with trifle matters. They were arguing as his Faithful grew noisier. Suddenly Joseph caught the young Deputy's eyes. And just as suddenly his breath stopped. The dream from a night ago consumed him and his vision filled with the eyes of Death. The woman. Her gaze petrifying. And vividly blue. This Deputy had the same eyes. Joseph's breath returned like a punch to his chest and instead of the debilitating fear that he had experienced in his dream, he felt instead a calm. A certainty. It was time.

He reached out and placed hands on his followers who quieted immediately, just as he felt his siblings completely move out from the shadows and start to fall in behind him. He had to calm his children. They knew not what they were interfering with. They looked to him with worshipful gazes and he took pains to look at each of them, exuding the sudden calm that he himself was experiencing. The certainty of his actions needed to be felt,

"We knew this moment would come. We have prepared for it." He watched as their expressions displayed, at first, disbelief, but then slowly agreeance and some of them started to nod in submission to his demand. He pushed them forward, urging them out so he could do what needed to be done.

"God will not let them take me." He briefly held the Deputy's eyes as he said this before the group of Faithful moved to leave. A rush of impatience filled his chest and he turned his gaze to the Lord, extending his arms upwards as if His angels would reach down and grasp him, raising him from this earth. But it was not yet his time. Words of prophecy rushed from his lips,

"I saw when the Lamb opened the First Seal, and I heard, as it were the noise of thunder, one of the four beasts say, come and see –" The Marshal's vengeful voice broke in,

"Step. Forward." Joseph's eyes burned with an inner fire and he dropped his hands and glared at the petulant man,

"- and I saw –" He leaned into the man, jabbing one finger at the Marshal in emphasis as the man glowered, continuing his prophesizing. This man was not strong. He would need Faith to make it to the end. Something he lacked. He let his glare travel from the Marshal and its trail left faint traces across the eyeline of the Deputy before he brought it to the Sheriff,

"- and behold it was a white horse –" the Sheriff shifted uncomfortably, not noticing as he stepped back away from Joseph, unconsciously trying to create distance between himself and the Father's intensity. Joseph let go of his gaze and turned his eyes to her. To Death. His voice was softened in acceptance as he finished, raising his hands upwards yet again to the young woman before him, the young woman with the pale blue eyes,

"- and Hell followed with him."

"Rookie. Cuff this son of a bitch." The Marshal's words were lost to Joseph. He only had the presence of mind for her. She was scared. He could see it in the line of her jaw and in the slight quiver of her hand placed on her pistol. Her dark hair was pulled back from her face and her eyes were wide as she stared right back at him, her nostrils flaring either in rage or in fright. But Joseph sensed that her fear was not overbearing. There was a sudden steeliness in her stance. Her wide eyes narrowed, and her hand reached back to the handcuff pouch on her belt. And suddenly Joseph was compelled, as he stood there with his hands out to her, wrist presented for restraining. His words were for her alone and they echoed in the confines of God's house, these were words for Death,

"God will not let you take me."

\- _Rebecca Shaw, The Deputy_

The moment Shaw had stepped into the Chapel, her unease had skyrocketed. Impressive considering that the walk from the chopper to here had already unsettled her immensely. It was being this close to Joseph Seed that was causing it. She could feel the insanity. She had felt it that day, long ago, in the Fall's End church. She had felt it every time her mother had left the house to go up the mountain. Joseph Seed got into your head. His words were the first part of it. Seeping into you like a smell, soaking in and becoming a part of you, until it took over all your thoughts.

As Whitehorse, Burke, and she moved down the aisle he continued speaking. His voice equal measure power and subtlety. And his gaze. Photos and videos were not able to convey the intensity, the absolute madness of his stare. It was as if it ripped into you. Tearing down any walls between his gaze and her very being. It was as if he stripped her bare and saw her for what she really was.

The crowd got angry and suddenly Shaw felt fear. Not that she hadn't before, but now, in Joseph's presence, Shaw began to realize that if he wanted to, he could have them killed. Just a quick glance around the chapel was enough to show that these men and women would not only kill but would die for their Father.

And why the hell were all the siblings there? They were not supposed to be there. As Joseph sent his Faithful away, John, Jacob, and Faith emerged from the shadows to stand behind him. Seeing all the Seeds in one location was overwhelming. Shaw felt a chill take root in her. Memories of her encounters with John and Jacob flooded back and seeing the new Faith, God it really was the Jessop girl, was disturbing.

Joseph's words coiled around her,

"- and Hell followed with him." His gaze filled her own. She felt, again, that deep sense of unease. As if this man knew something about her that she didn't. She did not like this feeling. Burke's voice intruded on her inner thoughts,

"Rookie. Cuff this son of a bitch." For a moment Shaw hesitated. She was ashamed to admit that she was afraid. Joseph Seed scared her in a way that she had never been scared before. And it certainly did not help that he was solely looking at her during all of this. She glanced from the Marshal to Joseph as her hand reached to the cuff pouch at her back.

"God will not let you take me." Those words alone were enough to invoke the ever-present rage in her. What the hell was up with these Seeds? She remembered the videos. The people, the friends, that this family and its brainwashed cult had hurt and destroyed. And he had the fucking audacity to invoke God's name? She pulled the cuffs from the pouch on her belt and stepped up to Joseph Seed. Her eyes stared defiantly up at him as she placed first one hand in restraints and then another. Joseph gazed down at her serenely and as she finished cuffing him and he bent down and spoke to her,

"Sometimes the best thing to do … is to walk away."

\- _The Heralds_

John's fists clenched open and closed as he watched the chapel doors slam shut, blocking off his view of Joseph. And Rebecca Shaw. He had been confused at first. She'd grown out her hair. And dyed it a darker shade. Also there were shadows under her eyes that hadn't been there before and her face was thinner. But still her eyes. Such rage. Penetrating. An old familiar feeling gripped him and rose from his gut. Obsession. Jacob's voice interjected into his thoughts,

"Well, well. If I'm not mistaken that was Ms. Shaw was it not?" Faith cocked her head and scrutinized Joseph's brothers. Shaw was a familiar name to her. Something from before. Regardless, the woman had certainly captured all three of the brothers' attentions. John's stare bore into the chapel doors with the psalms carved into the wooden surface. His voice was rough as he made it clear to them,

"If the Deputy survives, she's mine." Jacob cocked an eyebrow, shaking his head in consternation before commenting nonchalantly,

"More accurately if Joseph survives." Faith took the opportunity to smile gregariously, her soft lips stretching as she put her arms behind her back, clasping her hands as she twirled on her feet,

"Brothers. Fear not. Just as he said-" She turned to leave out the side door of the chapel, her face turning hard as it transitioned from the light of the candles to the pooled moonlight filtering through the windows, her brothers turning also to follow her,

"-God will not let them take him."


	10. Chapter 10: No Way Out

Chapter 10 – No Way Out

 ** _*NOTES: Sorry for the long hiatus. Been moving and doing a lot of different things. I give this excuse in full knowledge that, for supposedly having no time, I was able to complete both Far Cry New Dawn and the Resident Evil II remake video games. So. Again. No excuse. And I just got the motivation to carry on the good work here. Forgive me. Here's a long ass chapter as a form of penance. Also I know it's supposed to be the Roskam Brothers on Dutch's shirt but I don't know the reference and Dutch seems like an Allman Brothers fan to me. Also I know I haven't really been putting trigger warnings on these but I'm hoping the M rating kept most people away. Anyways I'll start doing them now because it gets worse from here. Trigger Warnings for this chapter as follows: Aerial and vehicle crashes, sexually suggestive threats, language. That's all I got. We'll see if I finish this out. Peace._**

Shaw had never been in a car crash before let alone an aerial crash landing. She'd never even broken a bone before, not for her father's lack of trying, but mostly because A) she was pretty solidly built and B) she'd been accident free her whole entire life. There was that one time she'd fallen off a 10 foot cliff while out hunting with her father in middle school but she'd landed in a snowdrift and only got some minor cuts and bruises from the fir branches between her and the ground. This. This was something else entirely. A sensory and emotional overload at a magnitude she'd never experienced.

She couldn't think. Fuck she couldn't breathe. The helicopter was whipping around and Shaw's body was rammed up into the corner of the cabin, held there by the force of the helicopter spiraling out of control. Lights were flashing, alarms blaring, the rotor blades squealing out a metallic noise, and the buckling of the metal panels surrounding the cabin were making a god awful sound. She was going to die. The view outside the cabin shifted rapidly between dark sky and dark ground. She was going to die. That's the only thought that was going through her head. She would have hoped that on the verge of her own demise that she'd be reminiscing on her life. At the very least she should have been thinking about Joey. She could just make her out of the corner of her eye, Joey's face a mask of terror. Or maybe she should be cursing the Seed name. Despite the noise as they fell out of the sky she could still hear Joseph Seed singing. ' _Was blind but now I see._ ' But no. Death. She was going to die. Then they hit the ground.

When Shaw regained consciousness she was confused. Where the hell was she? Her stomach roiled and she almost puked but there was nothing in her stomach and instead she gagged. Her vision was blurry but she could smell fuel and smoke, burning wood, dirt and blood. The taste of iron in her mouth. Touch came then, the pinching grasp of her seat belt around her waist, the feeling of blood rushing to her head, her arms swinging loosely. She was upside down.

Once she realized she was hanging upside down she figured out that what she was seeing was inverted. An unconscious Marshal Burke came into focus and his bloodied, dirt smeared face brought everything that had happened that evening crashing back in full technicolor. She groggily glanced around as her hearing came back and the muffled sounds distinguished themselves into that of crackling fire and Nancy's voice. ' _Please, are you there? Are you there? Are you there, Sheriff?_ '

The headphones swung back and forth on a wire and drew her eyes to an unconscious Joey to her right. Concern squeezed its way into her confused thoughts. Hudson had a gash under her right eye and it was dripping blood, she wasn't moving but she was breathing.

She looked back to the front, she couldn't tell if Pratt and the Sheriff were up there. She saw an unmoving form on the mesh wire, but besides that - wait. She was missing something.

 _'_ _Deputy Hudson? If you're there please pick up.'_

Hadn't there been another – a humming sound, someone was humming. Amazing Grace. _How sweet the sound_ … A rush of adrenaline coursed through Shaw's body and urgency came back with a vengeance, burning away the lethargic, piecemeal shock. Where the hell was Joseph? That was what was missing. There was the Marshal and Hudson, but where was Seed's unconscious, upside down body? Shaw frantically reached for her pistol holster, not finding her weapon on her hip or anywhere around her head on the upturned cabin roof, she cursed and instead began to reach out to the swinging headphones. Everything was still blurry and out of focus, but she needed to warn Nancy. Let her know to get someone out there. The too tight seat belt pinched into her ribcage and she felt a stabbing in her side, one or two of her ribs were either fractured or broken. _How sweet the sound._

She reached out as far as she could, excruciating pain lancing through her causing her to grunt, but she finally grabbed one of the swirling ear pieces. The feeling of accomplishment abruptly turned into panic when a hand wrapped with pray beads around its wrist came into her line of sight and grabbed her outstretched arm. Shaw froze. She didn't dare move as her eyes locked onto Joseph's behind his opaque aviator lenses that were only minimally fractured in the chaos of the crash. His cracked lips parted and he breathed,

 _That saved a wretch like me._

It was like being caught in the path of an onrushing train. And there was that all-consuming thought again. She was going to die.

 **Joseph Seed**

He let go of her wrist, letting it fall away as he stared intently at her inverted features. He wanted to know her, this young woman from his dreams. She had long dark hair that hung down behind her in a messy tail, strands, soaked in sweat and blood sticking to her temples. There was a cut just under her chin, possibly from some shrapnel, that bled, trailing two lines of blood up her left cheek; red, wet droplets almost reaching her eye. She had full lips, pulled tight in a grimace of fear to match her widened eyes that rested under thick brows. Streaks of crusted mud and dirt trailed across her right cheek and forehead and her skin was turning slightly red from the blood rushing to her head from being suspended in such a manner. As her arm fell slowly back down, Joseph reached up one of his own soiled hands and gently wiped the blood droplets away from her eye, before placing one hand on her upside down cheek, which flinched briefly beneath his touch. She looked scared. But there was a light in her eyes, somewhere in the reflected flames, that made him believe that fear wouldn't last long for her. The steely, cold strength that can only be born of trial and pain was in that light, waiting to burst out in a red tide of rage. He'd seen that look before. He'd seen it in himself once. He'd certainly seen it in his eldest brother before and to a smaller degree in John. It was Wrath and Pride. It was the promise of vengeance and the Vanity to believe that she would be the instrument of it. Joseph's eyes grew hard as he summed her up and suddenly, despite all the foreboding he had felt earlier that evening upon seeing her in the chapel, he found her wanting. If she was Death, she was a small death. He let his own hand fall down to the ceiling of the helicopter, bracing himself there as he professed softly to the young Deputy who glared at him so viciously,

"I told you that God wouldn't let you take me." His eyes wandered over her one last time as her lips pulled back into a snarl, her teeth covered in blood as she did so. He heard the crackle of the radio behind him.

 _Please. I need to know what's going on._

He knew that voice. Nancy Walters. A woman of faith. It'd been over twelve years now. She had served him well and he had promised her a place in Eden for her time serving as a warden. Informing him and his family of any law enforcement actions that might hinder their preparations. She had been the one to inform Jacob of that evening's plans, giving them the opportunity to make their own. Joseph tore his eyes away from the Deputy's face and reached out behind him to grasp the headphones before turning back to her. He clicked the call out button, his stare holding the Deputy frozen as he revealed a betrayal,

"Dispatch." He released the button. Nancy's intake of breath perfectly synched up with the young woman's own intake of air as her stare shifted to the headphone mike and then back to his gaze.

 _Oh my god._

He clicked the mike back on and said calmly into the voice box,

"Everything is just fine here. No need to call anyone." An incredulous look crossed the Deputy's features as Joseph let go of the call out button again, waiting for Nancy's response.

 _Yes Father… Praise be to you._

Shocked understanding dawned on the Deputy's face and a look of hurt betrayal replaced the malice in her eyes. Joseph wondered if the young woman would ever forgive Nancy. Not that it mattered. She was false. He could see it in her eyes and in her heart. Poison coursed through her. He would have to break her. Rid her of her malicious spirit. God would save all He could. Even this pretender. But God would also destroy those who worked against Him. All Joseph could do was carry out His Word. He let the headphones fall from his grasp and leaned in closer to her. He could tell that the fear was back, immobilizing her. Once he held her gaze again he whispered quietly,

"No one is coming to save you." He left her with those words as her face fell slowly, the panicked side to side movement of her eyes, searching for something on his face, but finding no comfort. He crawled out from under the wreckage and out to his gathering men who had arrived while he'd been taking measure of the Deputy. Slowly his children began to assemble, awe and amazement shining from their eyes and voices,

"Father! God has kept you under the shadows of his wings!" Joseph gave a soft smile, encompassing his men in his arms before proclaiming,

"Everything is unfolding according to God's plan. I am still here with you."

Deputy Shaw

Her mind was screaming. She was trapped. She was trapped and no one was coming to save her. Nancy had betrayed them and now no one would even know to come and help. Joseph was going to take her and that thought alone snapped her out of her panic. No. Fuck no. The others were slowly waking up around her as Joseph stood outside with his men. His voice reached her across the distance, over the crackle of the flames,

"The First Seal has been broken. The Collapse has begun." Shaw could see the Marshal and Hudson beginning to stir. Joey glanced groggily over at Joseph who had climbed up onto the hood of one of the Faithful's trucks, his voice rising as he rallied his men. Shaw began to tug at her seat belt. She needed to get everyone out of there.

"And we will take what we need. And we will preserve what we have." Joey slowly looked over to her and Shaw painfully reached a hand out, whispering,

"Joey." Her voice caught in her throat as Joey stared over at her blankly, shock still etched across her face. The Marshal let out a bout of coughing and Shaw's head snapped around to check on him as Joseph's voice turned hard,

"And we will kill all those who stand in our way." Sheer terror enveloped Shaw and she jerked back to glance at the gathered Faithful who were hanging on to Joseph's words like starving men grasping at food,

"And these-" Joseph pointed at them across the distance from his elevated position, flames framing him as if he wore a cloak of fire, his eyes boring into hers. She felt a chill grip her in her very bones. They were not kind eyes. They held the world and his world was cruel. The Faithful began to turn, their own gazes becoming hostile and predatory,

"-the harbingers of doom will see the Truth." The Marshal and Hudson still looked out of it, but there was no mistaking the malice underlying Joseph's words and even in their confused state they could feel the tension as if a dam were about to break. Marshal Burke's cracked voice groaned out,

"We gotta get out here… we gotta get out of here." Hudson glanced at Shaw, the same understanding dawning on her own face and she began to mouth Rebecca's name, but Joseph's booming proclamation drowned them out sending a charge of fear straight down Shaw's spine,

"BEGIN THE REAPING!" It happened too fast. They came at them, their shouts mixing with those trapped in the fallen helicopter as they all suddenly began tugging and pulling at their seat belts. Hudson's teeth were clenched as she ripped at hers, her labored grunts giving way to vitriol growls,

"GET THE FUCK OFF ME!" Shaw saw someone kicking at one of the Faithful in the front seat and she heard Sheriff Whitehorse shout out,

"Pratt, Pratt!" There was a moment of blindness for her as bodies flailed about. She heard Hudson crying out and tried to reach for her, but though she got a handful of her shoulder sleeve it was ripped easily from her grasp when Hudson's body suddenly dropped from its seat, slamming down onto the ground. Shaw tried again to grab one of her kicking legs, but the two men pulling Hudson out of the wreckage were stronger. Shaw was panicking again, her breath coming in jagged rasps. They'd taken Joey. They'd taken Joey! She whipped around in her seat and saw Burke struggling with his seatbelt, his eyes wide with terror as he shouted at her,

"Jesus Christ. We got to get the fuck out of here!" But they were coming. Shaw turned horrified eyes back to the entrance in time to watch one of the Faithful duck into the cabin, hands reaching out to her. Then fire. Bright, blazing fire that left an after image on the back of her eyes. The Faithful fell back behind the flames screaming. Joseph called out, his voice almost sounding angry,

"Let them burn. This is God's Will. This is their punishment." Shaw began coughing, the fumes gathering within the cabin and the air growing uncomfortably hot. Suddenly the Marshal fell out of his seat. And then ran. He didn't even spare a glance back at her as he crawled through the mud and away from the helicopter. _Hey!_ Shaw violently coughed again, her words catching in her throat, and, after eyeing Joseph Seed one last time through the rapidly growing flames, made one final violent struggle to free herself. As the smoke grew unbearable she suddenly felt a moment of weightlessness and then crashed down to the ground, landing heavily, pain lancing through her rib cage again. She didn't hesitate. She hurriedly crawled out of the fire, her hands scrambling in heated mud and then when she felt space above her head and a wall of cool air entered her lungs, she took off running, limping at first, then gaining speed. She heard the shouting behind her and then the crack of gunfire. She lurched a bit but kept running when two sudden punches in her back indicated that something had hit her body armor. Pain blossomed there but Shaw ignored it. She needed to get the hell out of there. So she ran, the darkness of the woods engulfing her like the maw of some feral animal swallowing her whole.

 **Jacob Seed**

Jacob pulled up on an ATV by the wreckage site, the heat from the flames hot on his face, the flickering firelight forming patterns across the torn up ground. Rumbling from behind let him know that his convoy had arrived with him. He switched off the vehicle's engine and slid off his seat, his boots planting firmly on the muddy ground. His lucky rabbit's foot clinked against his scratched dog tags as he moved to pull his long rifle from its gun rack on the ATV. His men also turned off their ATVs, dismounting and situating their own weapons on their person before forming up near him. Four men in total, each with faces hidden behind scarlet ski masks. His Hunters. Jacob directed them to stay put and then headed over to where Joseph was, surrounded by Faithful. His brother appeared relatively unscathed except for some bruising on his face and a healthy dusting of mud and dirt splattered across his torso and legs. There was a long crack in one of the lenses of his ever-present aviators.

Jacob glanced from the wreckage and back to his brother. He blinked slowly, taking in the surroundings. The lack of injury to Joseph seemed nothing short of miraculous. Four of the Faithful stood around Joseph, hands reached out to him, touching any part of him that they could; his shoulders, his chest, one even held his hand. Their gazes were awestruck, as if they beheld an angel of the lord. Or Jesus himself. Another handful of Faithful were milling around in front of the wreckage, superimposed like shadows on the backdrop of the flames as they went about searching three trussed up bodies on the ground. One of them was the Sheriff, his stained hat lying outside the circle of light under a stand of undergrowth. The other two were the young deputies, Hudson and Pratt. He was familiar with these two. He had dossiers on all the local PD personnel. All three of the officers were unconscious and injured in some form or another. But where was the Marshal? And Deputy Shaw? Jacob tilted his head staring into the woods on the other side of the helicopter. He could just make out signs of cracked and bent foliage as if bodies had moved urgently through the brush. Jacob had sharp eyes. There was blood on the leaves, a splatter of it on the ground. He saw a gouged hole in the side of a spindly tree, as if a bullet had ripped through the wood. His unnerving eyes focused back to his immediate concerns.

"Joseph." Jacob stepped up to his brother, the Faithful surrounding Joseph parted to let him through. Joseph held out one arm accepting Jacob's embrace as the eldest brother mused,

"You're alive." Joseph appeared amused at the statement as he pushed back Jacob out of his arms. He noticed his brother eyeing a patch of churned up earth and ravaged shrubbery surrounding the undergrowth where the Deputy had vanished amidst gunfire, swallowed up by the dark night. For his part, Jacob did not miss the sudden flash of emotion across Joseph's face, one of quick temper, narrowed eyes and flared nostrils. He'd seen similar looks on predators that had lost their prey. It was a look of irritation and unassuaged hunger. Deputy Rebecca Shaw. She was what caused his brother's consternation and Jacob was impressed. He might have to break his promise to John. If Shaw had survived this horrendous crash and even managed to escape, well…. He could only imagine the will of such a person. The strength. That type of strength could be put to good use.

"She escaped." It wasn't a question. And he had intentionally only spoken of the Deputy, not the Marshal. Joseph's irritation subsided and a look of acceptance crossed his features, his eyes taking on a blissful blur,

"God did not take her… Nor did he take me." He grimaced and waved the Faithful away from him, motioning for Jacob to follow him closer to the flames. Jacob relished in the heat, his body soaking in what it normally never experienced. He was constantly cold. Starved of heat. Much like he was starved for everything. Jacob never felt much. His dreams were rife with what could be, whereas life found him wanting more.

"Report." Jacob's gaze flashed back to Joseph, his brother's word turning his thoughts to baser things.

"You called for the Reaping, Joseph. We reap." He turned his brother from the flames and they watched a truck pull up and the Faithful and his Hunters began to grab up their captives, the ones in the back of the truck pulling the bed down so as to make space for the bodies.

"I've set up operations at the Veteran's Center. The Ranger Station's ours. John has sent a group to route Falls End and his troops at the assigned airfields are already establishing foot holds. Faith has let her Angels out of their cages in the mines. I saw the fires in the Henbane on my way here. They've already overrun the Hope County Jail. Faith's been…." Jacob took a breath, he had to give it to his 'sister', she was an efficient little shit,

"…swift. She assigned her Faithful to fix the exfil points out of the county. The Bison Tunnel's been caved in-" A crackle over the radio at his belt squelched out, interrupting him,

"War1 this is Wolf3, over." Jacob's eyes flickered and he placed a placating hand on his brother's shoulder before pulling the radio out of its holster and responding,

"Wolf3, send it." A short pause and then,

"OBJ Drubman seized. Opposition neutralized. 16 EPWs. 4 enemy KIA. No friendly casualties. How copy?" Jacob's smile was predatory, his teeth showing more than his lips, as if he bared fangs.

"Good copy all. War 1 out." His pale eyes blazed victoriously at Joseph,

"Drubman Marina is ours. That will give us the main avenues on the waterways. Give us a week, brother, and opposition will be neutralized… or destroyed." A flicker of emotion flashed across Joseph's face as he stared back at the point in the dark forest that the Deputy and Marshal had disappeared,

"Maybe." Jacob's baleful gaze bore into the forest as if he could strip back the layers of trees and target in on the Deputy's retreating back. Of course all plans failed at first engagement. If the Army had taught him one thing- well… besides how to kill effectively, it was that the littlest thing could fuck an operation right up. Fucking Murphy.

"I can hunt her, brother. Track down John's little obsession." He wisely called her John's obsession, but Joseph shook his head,

"No. Our focus should be on the Reaping. The whole island is alerted to her now. She's injured. Scared…" The last word was whispered as if Joseph didn't understand how the emotion could be used as a description for the Deputy,

"- she will be hard pressed to last the night." Jacob smiled,

"We'll see what she's made of then." John's voice suddenly interjected over the radio.

"Brothers." Joseph took the radio from Jacob's offered hand and he depressed the button on the side,

"Yes, John?"

"All communication hubs are under our control. We scrapped most of them. There's been… resistance." He drug out the word and Jacob, who was much better at deciphering radio comms, heard the distinct popping sound of gunfire mixed in with a high pitch squelch of people screaming. Joseph asked,

"Where are you?" There was a short silence and then,

"Falls End. The townspeople that were faster on the uptake have barricaded in the local bar. They won't last the night." Jacob's eyebrow raised at the sound of a large explosion in the background. It seems they weren't going to last the hour. It sounded like his younger brother was putting those RPGs to good use. Joseph nodded slowly, the dying fire from the wreckage reflecting in his aviators,

"Good work, John. Let us meet in the morning."

"What of the Sheriff and his deputies?" Jacob glanced over at those Faithful dragging the three bounded bodies into the truck bed. The Sheriff's eyes were blinking blearily, unfocused as he slowly began to regain consciousness. Joseph handed the radio to Jacob, done with the conversation. John didn't want to know about the Sheriff. Jacob raised the radio to his lips as he stalked over to the truck,

"We have the Sheriff and two of the Deputies."

"Two?" John's voice sounded impatient. Jacob's lips twitched as he knelt by a bush and pulled the Sheriff's rumpled hat from underneath, giving it a sharp thwack on his thigh, dislodging debris and dirt from the rim, as he stood straight again.

"Yes, John. Not your little _Becky_ though. The Marshal and Deputy Shaw not only managed to survive the crash, but also escaped. The Faithful will stop them from leaving the island." He was saying this as he stared down at the bound and gagged Sheriff, his arms braced on top of the truckbed's sides, the hat hanging loosely from one hand as it swayed back and forth in the space over Pratt's unconscious head. Whitehorse had fully regained consciousness as he lay helpless on his side. Blood covered his chin and there was a cut on top of his bald plate that dripped red down his forehead and into his eye. Someone had duct taped his mouth shut, but it didn't stop him from expelling a muffled curse up at Jacob as he jerked his body, attempting to get out of the restraints that trapped his arms behind his back. Jacob had to poke the bee hive a bit. He brought the radio back up to his lips again,

"That's what you really wanted to know, right, John? Don't worry, kid. She'll be yours soon." Whitehorse's eyes widened in rage and his feet lashed out to kick the metal side of the truck. Jacob smirked and threw the hat onto the Sheriff's face. The other two deputies were starting to stir. He turned and motioned for one of his Hunters to come over to him. He closed out the radio conversation as the Hunter came to stand before him,

"Patience, John." He thought he heard an exasperated growl from the other end but he unceremoniously turned the radio off and flipped the box to his Hunter who caught it in one hand,

"Where do you want them, sir?" Jacob sighed and, with his eyes lingering on the disturbed underbrush where the Marshal and Deputy had gone to ground, he decided,

"Take the Sheriff to Faith." He briefly looked back into the truckbed. Both the other two deputies were now awake. The woman was glaring vehemently at him and beginning to writhe about, making noise. The man was silent though, fearfully watchful, his eyes so wide Jacob saw more white than anything else. Hmmmm. There was no guarantee that Ms. Shaw would be captured tonight and poor Alex wasn't going to curb that growing obsession he had begun to see in John's gaze, nor was he going to last too much longer. His little brother needed to be focused. Hudson was her name. She began to scream at him through her gag. Yes, she would satisfy John in the interim.

"Give John the woman. Send Deputy Pratt to the kennels." He reached down into the back of the truck and roughly ruffled the young man's grimy hair causing the three officers to make outraged grunts and muffled curses. Pratt jerked his head from Jacob's grasp, but Jacob was quicker and he gripped the kid's jaw in his crusted fingers. Eyes met and Jacob grinned,

"Let's see what you're capable of, peaches."

 **Deputy Shaw**

Blood gushed over her hands, seeping through her fingers. She could _feel_ the man's life leaving. She saw it in his scared shitless eyes. He didn't want to die. But he did, the knife in her hands stealing his voice and his existence all in one slash across the neck. She hadn't wanted to but they'd been hunting her. The voices were still calling out, cutting through the silence of the woods, unaware of the violence that had just occurred.

She'd thought she'd been sneaky. Well she had been quiet, but so had he. They'd run into each other and…. Shaw raised the knife, her hand releasing the man's shoulder and she stared as his body slumped to the ground, lifeless. It had just happened. It was like she didn't think. One moment they'd run into each other and he had open his mouth to call out, the next her free hand had slammed down on his lips and her other was jamming a knife into the pale skin above his collar. Pale skin now spilling scarlet.

Shaw doubled over and vomited next to the corpse's head, just barely having enough sense not to expel the putrid stuff on his face. She was close enough to him to see the pockmarks of old acne scars. He couldn't be older than 22. She would have stayed and, more than likely, started uncontrollably sobbing, if one of the Peggies hadn't suddenly stomped into view and stared unbelievably at the macabre scene.

There was a short pause, almost comical in retrospect, as the Peggie looked from the dead man splayed in a puddle of muddy blood, up to Shaw with bloody knife in red hand, back down to corpse, and then back to trembling woman dressed in a soiled Hope County Police uniform. She saw the pieces dropping into place behind the stunned man's eyes about the same time she realized he had a semiautomatic rifle held loosely in his own hands.

"Shit." She dived behind the thick trunk of a large tree just as the Peggie whipped his weapon up and fired and then the chase was on. The woods, that had been relatively silent except for the intermittent calls between Peggies, were now alive with the explosive cracking of bullets being fired all around her. She'd never run so fast in her life. She'd never been so scared. Just run, Shaw. Get the hell out of there.

One cat and mouse game later and she had lost them, but a trail of fire had ripped across her thigh where one of the many bullets had grazed her. Her uniform was torn and ripped and she was pretty sure her second chance vest couldn't take another hit. And the world was blurring. She stopped suddenly and dry heaved. This had happened twice now. The first time, some type of goopy neon colored bile had passed through her. Now it was nothing, just blood mixed with spit. She'd had a concussion before. Her father had knocked her senseless once, whipping the butt of his shotgun across her cheek. It was why her jawline was ever so slightly off. Hudson had mentioned it about her once. As she leaned against a tree she felt the phantom brush of fingers across her cheekbone. She remembered explaining to Joey while they laid in bed how she'd had to wear mouth wires for a month. The concussion had been the worst part though.

"Joey." She called out her name and it brought her back to herself. Shaw hadn't realized she'd just been standing there, out in the open, leaning tiredly against the mossy bark of a thick tree, thinking about Hudson and her father. How long had she been standing there? She looked up, a wave of nausea making her vision blur. The stars were out full force tonight. The wind picked up and Shaw shivered. Where was the moon? The moon had moved. Shaw snapped back to focus suddenly realizing she had drifted again. Peggie voices were calling out around her. She'd let them catch up. Hands grabbed her.

"Got you." The voice was loud and brusque and it scared her. She saw the pistol and fear gave way to raging anger. Why didn't they just leave her ALONE? She snapped back his wrist and before he could cry out she had pulled the trigger, the weapon still in his hand as it went off. The man's head whipped backwards and Shaw felt a wet spray across her cheeks. More shouting. She took the weapon from his lifeless fingers and he fell like a puppet without strings. Crumpling in on himself. Just leave me alone.

Shaw knew that shock wasn't too far off now. She was about to lose it. She took a deep breath in and then let it out as the shouting around her got louder. It was time to leave. She needed to leave. She knelt though, her hands rummaging in the dead Peggie's clothes. Two loaded mags disappeared into her side pocket and her fingers brushed up against a suddenly crackling radio,

"Anyone know where that shot come from?" She heard snapping twigs to her right and didn't wait. Pistol came up and she shot. There was a grunt and the woman who had stepped from the underbrush fell face forward, shock evident on her face which was lit by the moon above. Leave me alone please. Shaw stood, the nausea hitting her again. Pistol in one hand and hissing radio in the other she moved out of the small clearing and back into the darkness of the woods. She thought she saw a dark structure through the trees. Maybe a cabin. There had to be a way out of this. Maybe there was a vehicle there. Something to get her the hell off this island. That was when the Marshal started talking out of the radio.

 **John Seed**

Falls End was his. His men pulled the truck up to the front of the Spread Eagle, the lude neon sign over the entrance flashing on and off. John smiled as he looked out the passenger window and with slow pleasure he opened his door, stepping out into the cool predawn air, his boots crunching the mussed gravel underneath them as he straightened up from his seated position. Bodies lay to his left, unceremoniously flung into a pile of limbs and gore, the harsh light from the light generators putting things into sharp contrast. To his immediate front though was what gave him such delightful ecstasy.

"Mary May." The Faithful had lined up their captives in a row before the bar, using wire and duct tape to subdue the unruly townspeople. They were filthy. Mary looked even worse for wear. A long gash from her shoulder to her elbow oozed sluggishly through a dirty rag that had been hastily used as a bandage. Soot covered her face and a peppering of jagged cuts ripped from her neck to her collarbone that poked out of her torn shirt. They had forced her to her knees in an oily puddle, but, upon seeing John Seed exit the Peggie vehicle, she attempted to stand as if to tackle him. Two of the Peggies shoved her back down to her knees though and one smacked her none-to-gently up against the side of her head causing her to fall into the person kneeling beside her who happened to be –

"Pastor Jerome! I didn't recognize you. Poor man, that looks like it hurts." The whole right side of the priest's face was swollen, taking on a bruised coloring on his protruding cheek bone. Jerome snarled out a muffled growl that was lost behind the duct tape covering his mouth. Both he and Mary glared up at him. John came to a stop right before them, the others in the line forgotten as he began to laugh. The laughter died away and silence fell on the group, the only noise was the crackling of the fire and the sound of rubble shifting in destroyed buildings as the Peggies continued to search for survivors. A dog howled mournfully.

John crouched down, bringing his eyes to the same level as his prisoners. He reached one, long fingered hand out to Mary, the tips of his nails dragging along her exposed collar bone. They reached the torn shirt and slowly, methodically he began to tear it further, the sound of ripping fabric sounding out. What it revealed was the raised skin of ruined flesh. John looked from the old scar, about the size of his palm, just below the collarbone and above her breast, back up into Mary's glare and he pouted,

"You removed it?" Mary's face contorted under the duct tape stretched over her lips. Fury burned just beneath her eyes. Peggie hands shoved down on her shoulders, keeping her from jumping up to her feet, those behind Jerome were giving him the same treatment. John glanced from the priest and back to Mary relishing the power he had over them. John's hand moved from the scar and back up to her neck, spreading out to clasp her throat gently. Goosebumps raised on her dirtied skin and her eyes widened. John's grip tightened and Jerome let out another growl redoubling his efforts to stand which earned him a crack over his head. Mary's nostrils were flared and John was just beginning to see the touches of red to her face that indicated the signs of suffocation when the radio squawked.

John let out an exasperated sigh and stood up, releasing Mary suddenly. She slumped forward causing the Peggies to hold her up briefly. Muffled coughs racked her frame as she desperately breathed through her nose.

"John." It was Jacob. John unclipped the radio from his belt and stood before Mary, her head level with his crotch. He reached down and gripped under her chin, forcing her to stare up at him as she continued to cough, tears streaming from her eyes. A finger caressed her cheek, wiping the tears away, as he answered the radio,

"Yes, Jacob."

"Have you captured Falls End?" Mary's coughing had slowed and she was back to glaring up at him. He stepped in closer to her with a sigh and she was suddenly uncomfortably close to his belt line. John smiled as Jerome redoubled his efforts to get at him causing the Peggies to fling him to the ground and begin to kick him into submission. Mary turned her head, a cry muffled as she tried to call out to Jerome, but John forced her chin back up so she had to look up at him,

"It's mine now." Were those actual tears in her eyes? Oh sweet Mary. My envious little Mary. Jacob's cold, calculating voice interrupted his thoughts,

"Come to the Rail Bridge. I need you here." John's thoughts shifted and he released Mary's face. He didn't notice as she crumpled down to her side. She was crying, memories of her night with John in his Confessional, Bliss seeping through her veins, flooding her mind and body, paralyzing her, sobs choking her into shocked silence. But John was thinking of someone different now,

"Did you find her?" He knew he sounded obsessive. He hated himself for it and the more he hated himself for it the more he wanted to wrap his hands around the Deputy's pale, smooth neck. He imagined her under him, her beautiful face twisted in agony, choking on blood that stained her soft lips. John shivered and asked again,

"Shaw. Did you capture the Deputy?" He could feel his brother's smirk on the other end of the radio.

"Maybe, kid. Get here now." That was it. John grimaced in irritation as he clipped the radio back on his belt. Before turning back to his prisoners, he took a breath and plastered a congenial smile on his face. His hands were clasped before him but he theatrically unclasped them and held them out as if to say, what can you do?

"Apologies. I'd love to continue this conversation – " his eyes lingered on Mary's who dropped his gaze instantly, looking anywhere but at him,

"- but duty calls. I need to see to other…" John took a moment to think of the word and then grinned at Jerome who was back up on his knees, staring defiantly at him,

" – lost sheep. Bring them home per se." John turned to his Chosen.

"Lock them up, start putting up defenses. We'll have to organize a Cleansing for them, but all in good time." He began to walk back to his truck,

"There's still Reaping to do."

 **Jacob Seed**

The water churned and curled far below him, foam forming when slower currents met faster, deeper ones, grays turning to browns and then to blacks. Jacob looked up from his study of the deep currents and witnessed the first light of day peeking above the horizon. The flash of dawn blinded him temporarily, but he held up a hand and watched it rise, superimposing his brother's statue in a fiery haze. A truck drove up the bridge and parked behind him.

"Jacob." John was excited. It exuded from his voice and as Jacob turned to look at him he saw the feral light behind his eyes. There were droplets of blood and smears of soot on his hands. Jacob slowly blinked and then turned back to the twisting waters.

"Joseph wants us to report in person. In an hour." John's boots scraped across the bridge, dislodging loose chunks of gravel. He stopped by Jacob and glanced from the wrecked barrier and down to the river below where a group of Faithful were pulling a waterlogged, bullet ridden truck from the churning mass.

"What happened here?" Jacob sighed and took his hands from the twisted metal of the bridge's barrier before crossing his arms. One of the salvagers raised a hand towards the bridge, one thumb pointed down. No body.

"It seems the Deputy got her hands on a vehicle. She made a run for it with the Marshal, but …." A wave of his hand took in the demolished truck. John's face took on a steely look, his eyes narrowing,

"She's dead?" Jacob shrugged,

"The Marshal was taken from the river, they sent him to Faith. But the Deputy is still missing. No body in the truck though. Nothing washed up on shore." John scowled,

"Spare me, Jacob. Were there signs of her escaping the river?" Jacob grinned and pointed just down river,

"As a matter of fact. Someone pulled her from the water. Not one of ours… and I lost the trail. Whoever it was did well covering their tracks." John grumbled,

"It'd have been better if we had captured her." Jacob stepped away from the edge of the bridge and began to walk to John's truck,

"Maybe so. She seems to be more of a factor than I originally gave her credit for. Joseph is just as obsessed as you are." A look of shock crossed John's face.

"What?" Jacob opened the driver's door and got in.

"I wouldn't know, kid. _The Father_ defies understanding. Now get in." He slammed the door shut and turned on the ignition. John still lingered at the barrier, watching the activity around the wreck below. Jacob almost rolled his eyes but opted instead for a threatening glower,

"John." John jerked and nodded, coming back to the passenger side of the running vehicle. He slammed the door harder than he intended to,

"When I get my hands on her…" He left it at that and Jacob smirked, putting the truck in drive,

"You'll have to wait, kid. In the meantime you have that buck, Alex. If you took Falls End you also have the Fairbanks woman, I know how much you hated the fact she escaped last time. She's yours now." John tapped long fingers on the dashboard, seemingly not listening. Jacob added on,

"Also I had the Faithful drop off that one Deputy at your bunker. The woman. Hudson." Jacob briefly thought on the bunkers. All three had been taken easily within the past 6 hours. The Montana National Guard had stationed only a squad sized element at each. The Whitetail bunker had given the most resistance, but even it had fallen in less than an hour. John perked up at the mention of fresh meat, much like one of Jacob's Judges when he threw warm bodies into their cages after a fasting period,

"I can be patient, Jacob." He stared out the window, watching the river disappear in the side mirror,

"I can wait."

 **Deputy Shaw**

Cold, dark water surrounded her as she fell, sinking further and further down into the abyss. She couldn't breathe. She needed to breathe! She lashed out to try and swim up but instead woke with a violent start, her lashing out halted by zipties restraining her wrist to a metal bed frame. Shaw froze trying to figure out where she was, but then groaned when pain and nausea wracked her abused body. She honestly could not remember a time she'd been in more pain than in that moment. She slowly began to notice other things besides her physical agony, like sound.

 _Everything I've told you has come true… The authorities who tried to take me from you are now in the loving embrace of my Family… save one._

The voice was putting her on edge. She could feel her sore and torn muscles clinching and her breath started to come rapidly, causing her ribs to scream in protest.

 _But this Wayward Soul will be found. She will be punished…_

She wanted to run away. She wanted to fight. She just wanted to be left alone. But the voice, his voice. Joseph Seed.

 _… and in the end, she will see our glorious purpose._

She needed to get out. Joseph's words were flooding adrenaline back through her numb limbs and she began to pull on her restraints, her eyes focusing and beginning to take in her surroundings. Metal bed frame. Mattress. Turning her head sent a bolt of agony down her neck and spine.

 _I am your Father. You are my Children. And together,_

Where was the voice coming from? Shaw turned her aching head towards the sound and jerked when she saw a figure standing there, hovering over a radio, American flag hanging on the wall in front of him and smoke rising from a lit cigar jammed into a chintzy ash tray.

 _…we will march to –_

The man, hidden in shadow, jabbed a finger at a button on the radio, silencing the Father. Shaw tensed and waited as the man took a deep breath in and then let it out, the sigh breaking the atmosphere of dripping water and whirling machines. Who the hell was this? Was he a Peggie? The man turned towards her, his eyes hooded, and he jerked his thumb towards the radio,

"You know what that shit means?" Shaw kept silent, shifting slightly on the cold linoleum floor, her slightly damp clothes squelching underneath her. She was not comfortable as she stared up at this guy. He wasn't yelling at her but the way he was talking was not putting her in a calm mind frame. He continued, stepping away from the radio stand towards her, finally entering the light, letting her see him more easily,

"It means the roads have all been closed. It means the phone lines have been cut." He was an older man, bald head, graying goatee, glasses, skin that looked like it had seen too much sun in his life. Tattoos reached up his arms from his wrists and disappeared under an old BDU combat blouse that had its sleeves rolled up to his elbows. The blouse hung open and a band shirt, 'The Allman Brothers', was worn underneath. He took a seat in the chair in front of her, leaning back as he contemplated the young woman sitting on the ground before him. Shaw pursed her lips and glared up at the old bastard. Who the hell was this guy? He leaned in and groused,

"It means there's no signals getting in or out of this valley." Shaw blinked owlishly, how long had she been out? Did the Peggies already have the valley? This guy was saying that they had taken all the comms out. How were they going to get the Guard out here? What had happened to her people? She vaguely remembered the crash, her and the Marshal falling through the air as their truck hurtled to the dark waters below it. She remembered the Marshal, leaving her AGAIN! And then washing up on the shore and… the memory was blurry but she could recall the Marshall yelling and then being taken by Peggies. Shaw looked back into the man's haggard face. She remembered this face. He'd pulled her from the river.

"But mostly, it means we're all fucked." Shaw was getting the distinct feeling that the old man wasn't a Peggie. He stared at her, letting his last words fill the silence. He seemed to be weighing her. Trying to determine something about her. Shaw didn't like that look. It was too similar to how Joseph had stared at her as she hung upside down in a burning helicopter. As if she was taking part in something. As if she was involved.

"The goddamn "Collapse" … they all think the world's coming to an end now. They've been waiting for it. For years. Waiting for somebody to come along and fulfill their prophecy and kick off their goddamn Holy War." His eyes bore into her as he paused from his monologue. Again that calculating look.

"Well, you sure as shit kicked." With this he shook his head and leaned back into his chair. She wanted to argue. It wasn't her fault the Project had gone fucking schizo and kidnapped kids on social media and dropped a helicopter out of the air and were now, what? Reaping. She didn't say any of this though because Shaw had seen this before. People who were trying to come to a decision. They all looked the same. Sounded the same. Huffy sighs. Eye contact. Biting lips. Should they lie? Should they tell the truth? Should they just leave it alone? Should they, shouldn't they? This guy was coming to a decision about her and she knew deep down, just from the set of his jaw and the hawkish feel of his stare, that this was a man who made his own decisions and nothing she said could sway him one way or the other. He leaned back in and tilted his head, eyeing her intensely, his voice taking on a softer cadence, as if he talked to himself,

"The smartest thing for me to do would just be to hand you over." It was like he had doused her with a bucket of ice water. It was that feeling one got when you first realized there was something majorly wrong. The breath hitched in her throat and she leaned away from the guy, her eyes widening. The threat of him turning her over to the Seeds had sent her mind into disarray. She was back in the church, the Seeds arrayed before her. She could feel their eyes locking in on her. Hungry. She didn't realize she had tugged on her restraints and she saw the old man's eyes shift down to her wrists before returning to her own fearful gaze. His nostrils flared and a gush of air huffed out when he saw the look in her eye. He leaned back out again and placed his hands on his knees in a disgruntled manner before looking away from her,

"Fuck." He'd come to a decision. He pushed back on his chair, the legs scraping on the floor as he straightened up pulling a knife from off the back of his belt. Shaw leaned away as he flipped the knife open, not sure what exactly he was going to do with it, but then he knelt and placed a warm hand on her forearm and slid the blade inbetween the zipties, ripping up, cutting the restraints off. Shaw raised her eyebrows and pulled her hands to her chest, gently rubbing the bruised wrists, the least of her injuries, if the responding twinge of agony from her ribs at pulling her arms inward was any indicator. She glanced up at him and he grimaced, clipping the knife back onto his belt. He then gestured down at her. Shaw eyed her ripped up jeans, covered in mud and splatters of blood, the short tear just above her knee on her left thigh displaying the bullet graze gouged into her skin and muscle. Her long sleeved blouse was even worse, the tough material hadn't torn but it smelled and the whole front was drenched in dry, crusty blood stains, not hers. It was from the people she'd killed. Also she could feel the velcro giving out at the left shoulder of her concealed body armor, it wasn't going to last too much longer,

"Get out of that uniform… we need to burn it." He pointed to a locker to her right,

"There's some fresh clothes there. When you get changed come and see me." Shaw felt herself nodding in agreement. His rugged voice drew her attention back up to him,

"We'll see if we can… un-fuck this situation." He didn't sound hopeful, but then again, the only thing Shaw really felt he conveyed was irate grumpiness. She coughed, clearing her dry throat and asked groggily,

"Who are you?" He turned at the doorway, which looked more like a hatch one would find in a submarine or aircraft carrier. A begrudging look crossed his face, but he responded with an answer,

"Dutch." He took in her uniform again and declared,

"You're a Deputy. A new one." She nodded and, gripping the metal frame of the bed with one hand and, holding her injured ribs with the other, she pulled herself into a standing position, her body convulsing as she coughed from the stress of movement,

"Shaw –, " She finished coughing and, renewing eye contact with Dutch, repeated,

"My name is Shaw." Dutch's brow furrowed and he leaned up against the metal doorframe,

"Your daddy was Michael Shaw?" The question took her off guard, but Shaw nodded, taking a step towards the locker, placing her free hand on the locker door. Dutch rumbled,

"Man was an ass." Shaw was shocked into a laugh which she immediately regretted, her face grimacing in pain as she winced out,

"I agree." She pulled the door open and looked in, seeing a selection of flannel and jeans, a few jackets, and, surprisingly, some cowboy hats. A particular dusted, black leather Stetson stood out to her, but the thought of changing made her wince,

"I'm going to need help. My ribs." Dutch raised an eyebrow and pointed behind her towards a half size alcove, she saw tile and a shower head through the partially opened shower curtain,

"Showers in there. First aid kit is in the command center. I can help you when you're done cleaning." Shaw blinked slowly. She was trying to work around the fuzz in her skull that the concussion had caused. It was like trying to see in soupy fog. She was looking at the clothes in the locker, they looked like they'd fit. Slurred words came out of her mouth,

"You don't have any bras." Dutch scowled,

"Do I look like I've got titties?" Shaw almost laughed again, but refrained for the sake of her ribs,

"If you got guaze in the kit, I can bind 'em." Dutch uncomfortably nodded,

"Yeah, I'll get that for you." He had stopped leaning against the wall when she'd asked him about the bras and now he quickly turned to exit out of the room,

"Hey, Dutch?"

"What?"

"How long have I been out?" Dutch looked back at the haggard face of the young woman. She looked fucking horrible. If someone had shoved her in a potato sack and then proceeded to fling her down a rocky hillside she couldn't have come out looking much worse than how she looked now. She more than likely had a concussion too. Dutch grumbled,

"Since the Peggies started their attacks… about a day. Didn't know what you were about or what I was going to do with you, that's why I had you all trussed up like that. Apologies. I should have fixed you up. It's just…" He sighed heavily and rubbed his bald head with an aged hand,

"It's been a hell of a day. - Hurry up and get cleaned, I'll have some food waiting for you, if you can keep it down. I'll be back with the guaze for your -", he waved vaguely at his chest with a slightly embarrassed look before stomping out, headed to go grab the guaze she'd ask for.

Shaw leaned up against the locker with a groan. A whole day?! She'd been out a whole day. What about her friends? What had the Seeds done with them? What did he mean attacks? Was that the 'Reaping' Joseph had been shouting about? She could start feeling her throat closing up and there was an itch at her eyes. She just wanted to sit down and sob. But how the hell was that going to help her? Or her friends. Joey. They had Joey.

In her fight to control her emotions she noticed something carved into the wall on the other side of the small room.

 _'The world is a diagonal. I am the balancing point.'_

It got stuck in her head as she stared at it. She began to repeat it in her head. Slowly the ache in her throat subsided and the urge to cry disappeared. She was still stressed. Still at a lost for what to do, but the words were pushing aside thoughts of the future and instead she began to list things she could do now. I can shower, she thought. Dutch took the opportunity to knock on the door frame, seemingly unsurprised to see her still standing in the exact spot he had left her in,

"Here. Take your time. I'm still shifting through radio traffic, trying to get a handle on the situation." Shaw took the guaze from his outstretched hand,

"I thought you said the lines were down." Dutch nodded,

"A few messages got through before they cut them. Also, folk in the county love their HAM radios just as much as they love their guns. The Peggies haven't gotten all the towers out there. All the long distance ones though…" He seemed to think on something for a second,

"It's going to be a bitch getting those back up. They didn't keep em for use either. They blew em up according to Eli. It's like they could care less about the outside world." He momentarily stared unseeing at the American flag, but then shook his head and nodded to her,

"I know you're groggy. It's probably a concussion. Just do the best you can and get back out here. I think I have some vertigo medication around here somewhere." Shaw nodded as he left out again and regretted it when a wave of nausea hit her. She then began to shuffle her way over to the shower.

As she finished stripping her clotted blouse off, her second chance vest finally gave out and clattered to the ground. Shaw stared at it, momentarily shocked as she took in the damage her vest had protected her from. Two bullets were lodged in the back of the vest, clustered about mid way up on her right side, right where her ribs were aching. 9 mil. There was also a bit of shrapnel poking out between the front and back plate. She couldn't tell if it was from the helicopter or the truck. There were a smattering of pellets across her stomach from a shotgun blast. She'd stupidly run through a barrage of bullets while working with the Marshal at the cabin to try and get to the truck. One of the Peggies had vaulted a bit of cover and run straight at her. She'd shot him in the head as he got off a barrel full into her belly from close range. She should be dead. Shaw shuddered. Looking at that vest, Shaw knew she should be dead. She looked up and got sight of her reflection. There was a mirror on the wall in the shower. Her torso was a mass of bruises, and where the vest hadn't quite covered all of her were cuts, punctures, burns, and lacerations. The helicopter crash had left a deep cut just under her chin that was going to scar. Somehow she had gotten her face bludgeoned because her eyes were starting to blacken. The last time that had happened to her had been in a boxing match, when her opponent had squashed her face in, nearly breaking her nose. She reached a filthy hand up to her nose and pushed down. It didn't hurt which meant nothing was broken. Thankfully. She liked her nose.

It was all getting to be too much again. Her eyes took in her crumpled shirt. The blood that coated it. She spread the fingers in her hand out, displaying the crusted blood in between them. It was everywhere. And it wasn't all hers. Shaw breathed out and whispered,

"The world is a diagonal. I am the balancing point." The worlds were pointless and at the same time everything. They calmed her and gave her the strength to get the rest of the mucky clothes off, mentally shying away from the story her clothes were telling her. After an intense struggle with her boots, she stumbled into the small shower cubicle and turned on the water. It was hot. Thank God.

"The world is a diagonal. I am the balancing point," she whispered again as she watched the grime circle down the drain, red and brown and black. What was she going to do?


End file.
